The Airbender and the Leaf
by rogue rider zero
Summary: Based just before Naruto returns from his training team Gai have been transported to the Avatar's world. Now they must survive in this new world as well as trying to find the answer to getting home.
1. Leaving Konoha

This is just something I wanted to try. I will update X exe and I will probably redo Saboady Archipelago SEES style at some point, I just want to see how this does. If people want to read this story I will update quicker.

I own nothing in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender toMichael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko

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**The Airbender and the Leaf**

The forest stood still, silent. The sun cast rays of light down onto the tree tops which prevented most of the light from reaching the earth. A forest of light and shadow, a fitting location for a village of stealth and ninjas. There was a rustle of trees as a light wind blew through the forest. Birds were in contrast to the forest chirping to each other making a loud noise which filled the void of sound created by the lack of other entities. This soon changed as a branch snapped causing the birds to take flight into the clear, blue, cloudless sky the sound of wings filling the sky before near silence resumed. A shadow dashed over the branches a second later and would have trampled the birds had they still been there. Not to be outdone a few seconds later three more shadows almost flew over the branches trailing after the first shadow and again only a rustle of leaves and a light wind remained before dying out to leave the forest still.

"Shit, I've gotta get out of here" muttered the first shadow who increased his acceleration. He wore standard shinobi clothes with flak jacket and had a headband with a note tied around his right arm. A kunai whizzed past his left ear and left a long scar along his check before embedding itself into the tree in front of the sound shinobi.

"Crap" he whispered. "The Konoha brats are catching up."

Meanwhile the other three shadows were gaining speed. The scenery around them became a blur so they couldn't see the moss covered trees towering over the muddy ground below, littered with grass and moss. There wasn't enough light penetrating the canopy of the trees in this part of the forest anyway. The lead shadow wore a green jumpsuit, a catachan green flak jacket, bandages around his arms, orange leg warmers and had a red band around his waist with a metal plate on it. His hair was in a bowl cut.

"Yosh, soon we will catch up to you and I will make Guy sensei proud!" he yelled.

The next shadow, a Chinese looking girl with her brown hair up in two buns, with a giant scroll on her back and wearing a pair of baggy red trousers and a loose white shirt with red lining ,which was somehow unmarked with grime. She also wore a forehead protector which was tied around her head. This girl looked at her green clothed companion and said.

"Lee, you do realize that Guy sensei isn't on this mission with us."

"Give it up Tenten, if Guy doesn't look up how our mission went, which is highly unlikely, Lee will tell him anyway. Besides he won't stop anyway, just ignore him." The third shadow spoke. He had long brown that reached down to his lower back and wore white robes again with dirt absent. He had his forehead protector tied around his head as well and had white pupil less eyes.

"Yes Neji, We must show our youthfulness off to live properly." Lee said behind him.

"See Tenten this is why you shouldn't encourage him." Neji replied before propelling himself off his current branch to carry on running forward.

"Tenten, you seemed to have missed his vital spot as I can't find his corpse." Neji spoke whilst focusing forward with his Byakugan.

"Shut up Neji, I must have been close I can see a trail of blood."

"Neji is he still far away?"

"No... He's close wait duck!"

After this command Neji leapt to the left instead of carrying on with his original path as an explosive tag went off covering the immediate area with smoke and dust. Branches collapsed and fell down making a loud crashing noise as they impacted upon the hard ground below causing debris to be spread throughout the area.

"Keep on your toes, he's managed to set up some traps." Yelled Neji keeping an eye on his surroundings.

"He will not prevent me from getting back that forbidden scroll" yelled Lee emerging from the smoke on Neji's right and dashing forward.

"Neji! How far away is he?" asked Tenten emerging a second later from Neji's left side this time.

"About fifty metres, Lee will be encountering him soon. We better hurry!" was the reply before Neji gathered more chakra in his legs and took off, leaving Tenten in the dust as it were.

"Shit. You caught up" the sound ninja stated as an explosion sounded directly behind him again blasting debris and dust everywhere. He raised his arms to cover his face, but not enough to block his vision. A green blur rocketed out of the rising smoke sending a branch to crash prematurely onto the ground. It dashed to the right landing on the side of a tree before the figure leapt again, this time towards the sound ninja and he flipped in the air to bring his foot crashing down into the side of the sound ninja's head.

"Dynamic Entry!" he yelled before back flipping off his opponent to land on an opposite branch. He placed one hand behind his back whilst raising the other, palm open, towards his opponent.

"I am the beautiful green beast of Konoha. Rock Lee!"

"Fine... I'm Takeshi. Now prepare to die!" The sound ninja replied before jumping in the air. Dog, boar, snake hand seals were made before.

"Ninja art – Instrument Capture!" Upon the completion of his jutsu he threw out strings which collided into all the trees nearby and tightened.

"I do not see how this is a jutsu, you have just used ninja tools." Questioned Rock Lee. "Maybe my youthfulness has overpowered you. Leaf Whirlwind!" With this Rock Lee leapt forward towards the sound ninja, but was caught off guard when music came out of nowhere. When he looked around he couldn't see anything amiss. "What is happening? Where is that music coming from?" He asked seeing the smirk on the sound ninja's face he knew that he had fallen for his trap.

"This jutsu activates upon movement. Vibrations cause sound so when vibrations happen the strings detect it and play music, locking on to the 'player' of the music. Then they constrict them!"

Rock Lee tried to jump back out of the way, however the strings had encircled him.

"Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin!" was heard before a blue ball of chakra appeared next to Lee before following it's trajectory and landing a short way away on a branch. The spinning had finished by now to reveal Neji Hyuga perched on the end. The strings had now been broken and hung limply from the trees. Lee jumped back towards a tree opposite of Neji's.

"Thank you Neji."

"You should be more careful Lee. You give it up; you have no chance of victory with two Konoha Chunin and one Jonin."

"Maybe, but I still have one trick up my sleeve." Takeshi said before reaching back to his ninja pouch and he began pulling out a scroll with deep blue edges.

"The forbidden scroll!" Lee exclaimed.

"Tenten stop him!" Neji commanded which led to a large amount of bladed objects hurtling through the trees towards the sound ninja.

"I may die, but I can still send you away with this reverse summoning scroll. Orochimaru may not have told me where it sends people, but it can't be good if it's forbidden!" He laughed before biting his thumb and spreading a large amount along the withered scroll.

"Ninja art – Scr... Urgh!" He cried as hundreds of weapons pierced his body, causing him to drop the scroll and he sank to his knees covered in blood which was leaking from the wounds covering his body.

"Damn you, you bastar..." were his final words as he took after the scroll and dived towards the ground. A soft crunch of bones and the metallic ring of metal hitting metal sounded throughout the clearing as the ninja impacted upon the earth. His blood spread out over the course mud and seeped into the cracks. Soon the ground near where he fell was saturated and the crimson fluid began pooling in the trees roots.

The three Konoha ninjas appeared on the ground in a puff of smoke having performed the body flicker jutsu.

"A truly disgusting and pitiful sight." Commented Neji looking down. He turned his head to the side to see where the scroll and been discarded and walked forwards to its location.

"Mission, completed." He murmured.

"What should we do with the body?" asked Lee

"We don't know any fire jutsu so we can't incinerate it and taking it back to Konoha is a bad idea." Neji replied. "Tenten do you have any explosive tags?"

"Do you really have to ask?" queried Tenten. Pulling out a few choice notes.

"Try and blow some earth over him, but don't blow him up. He looks bad enough already and I don't want to disrespect the dead."

"Sure thing Neji" Tenten said before beginning to set up her tags.

"Neji..."

"Yes Lee."

"Is the scroll meant to glow like that?"

The three ninja were now staring at the scroll in Neji's hand which was indeed emitting a bright, pure white, light.


	2. Brand New World

I would like to express my gratitute to all the fans this gathered in the short space of time it was up and I would like to thank Abhorsen21

for clearing up the issue of wether it was Guy or Gai. Team Avatar will appear soon, but team Gai will not join until 'The Chase' episode. They will join either in this or after this episode so they might be around for the episode 'Bitter Work'.

Again I own nothing in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender toMichael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

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The light shone brilliantly, engulfing everything and chasing out all the shadows. All colour and objects disappeared from sight and team Gai were forced to close their eyes to prevent a searing pain from entering their skulls. A swift wind seemed to whip around them, blowing them high up before sending them crashing down a mere second later. Even with their eyes closed they were almost blinded and it took all of their willpower to keep their eyes firmly closed against the wind. Soon however the light seemed to dim and the pain ebbed away letting team Gai crack open their eyes to observe their surroundings. They emerged into a clearing very similar to the one they had previously stood in. Confused they began to glance around and the wind that had brought them there was dispersing as the trees and shrubs in the area began to die down to only a quiet sporadic rustling.

"Everyone alright?" asked Neji whilst he continued to scan the area.

"I think so..." replied Tenten. "Lee how about you?"

"Yosh! My youthfulness has protected me from harm!" Lee yelled across the clearing before Neji smacked him on his head.

"Lee don't shout, it's annoying and besides I need to figure out what's going on."

"What do you mean Neji?" asked Tenten. "This clearing looks the same."

"With one big exception. Look Takeshi's corpse is gone."

"What!" cried Tenten and Lee.

"Neji what is going on" asked Lee.

"I don't know, but it must have something to do with that scroll Takeshi was carrying. He said it was a reverse summoning scroll so he must have sent us somewhere."

"But where" queried Tenten.

"I don't know" replied Neji. "Still we must be careful. We shouldn't tell people about our village until we know where we are and if it is safe to tell people."

"Why Neji if people know about our village they can helps us return and maybe even go there to hire us, even if they do not know of us we could tell them to get more clients." Lee said.

"Normally that would be a good point Lee, but this was a sound summoning scroll and to be honest Konoha isn't the most popular village so we might get attack and for the moment it would be best to avoid confrontation. At least until we can get more information."

"So what's the plan?" Tenten asked.

"We will split up and gather information of our surrounding area. If we're lucky we won't be too far away from Konoha, but the fact that the scroll was forbidden is worrying me. Keep in contact with the radios and meet back here in three hours. Team move out." Neji commanded and with these words team Gai disappeared into the shadows and leapt through the trees in different directions.

The clearing stood still. Quiet and peaceful not even a gentle breeze interrupted the silence with the rustling of leaves. However peace did not reign for long in this clearing and this could be a metaphor for the whole country the clearing resided on. A crack of a branch, a cloud of dirt thrown into the air, a single leaf started fluttering down from a tree only for it to be split in two by a passing shadow.

"Anything to report?" Asked Neji.

"Yosh! I have found out that we are in a different world and I have a map here!" Cried Lee producing a crumpled piece of parchment from inside his kunai pouch.

"I managed to get some research on fighting styles here" Tenten spoke up. "Apparently they can do this thing called 'bending' which is akin to our jutsus, however they seem to have less control and they don't seem to have the same chakra requirements. Neji maybe you could look at these benders with your Byakugan and tell us more."

"That sounds like a powerful ability Tenten." Neji replied. "Can everyone do it with training?"

"No only certain people are able to do it and people have arranged their countries around what element out of air, water, earth and fire you can bend. Other than that most weapons here are pretty standard, swords, knives the same as our world."

"What about you Neji, what did your youthfulness allow you to find out?"

"I know a little about the history of this place. There is a person called the Avatar that apparently can communicate with spirits as well as being able to use all four elements. He is also supposed to be very knowledgeable with centuries of experience and information."

"What do we do now Neji?" Tenten asked.

"Well" Neji replied whilst looking at the map "we should find this avatar, if he can communicate with the spirits he might know something about our world and with his vast knowledge he will probably be our best bet."

"Sounds like a good idea Neji." Lee interjected.

"For now we should head to this village I spotted nearby. We should be able to pick up some money there at least and maybe we'll find hints as to the avatars location." Neji concluded.

"Roger!" was the reply from Lee and Tenten and the three jumped into the trees.

Team Gai were walking down the hard dirt road. To the sides majestic mountains could be seen rising towards the heavens, piercing the clouds. Trees dotted the otherwise sparse hills as the forest had run out a mile or two ago. Farms were beginning to appear on the side of the roads with gruff, hard-faced labourers working in them, ploughing the fields and picking up crops. They received weary looks from the labourers who were clad in clothes of green and cream with wide straw hats hung around their necks or placed precariously on their heads to offer some protection from the sun beating down around them.

"What's going on?" asked Tenten. "It's almost as if they're at war, or at least have bandit problems."

"Yosh! We could help them out to show our youthfulness!" Lee exclaimed doing a nice guy pose towards a worker who turned away.

"We should be careful, they look as if they're ready to attack us." Neji stated. "Come on we need to get to the town centre and ask around."

The three shinobi followed the rugged dirt path along the river until they reached the outskirts of the village. A lake was situated on the outskirts and there was a narrow wooden bridge crossing over it that led into the town. Upon reaching the town centre team Gai could see a large tree blooming out of the ground and shadowing the surrounding area. Behind the tree sat the tallest building in the village.

"Let's go" Neji commanded striding forwards, either oblivious to the suspicious stares he received or more likely he didn't care about them.

"These people are most unyouthful" Lee muttered before following Neji's lead and he was soon followed by Tenten. Neji pushed open the doors and walked in to the cool building.

"Hello, we are travellers seeking information can you help us?" he announced looking around the room.

"You poor person, having to travel whilst blind, we'll help you as much as we can" said a girl rushing forwards. She had brown hair and matching brown eyes. Her clothes were eerily similar to Tenten's albeit with the red lining and hanbok more faded and worn out.

"I assure you that I am not blind" replied Neji "But we could use some help, has there been any problems here? We appear to be a little confused as to the state of the world at the moment."

"What!" the girl cried. "How can you not know about the war with the fire nation."

"War with the fire nation! That's not good, I thought we were at peace!" Tenten exclaimed to Lee.

"We are obviously in a different location" Neji said turning around. "This proves it as our village is not in a full scale war, however this makes things troublesome for us if there is a war."

"Ah I'm sorry" An old man said coming out of a door to team Gai's right. "I'm sorry if Song caused any trouble, but she had some nasty visitors not too long ago which ruined her trust." The old man strode across the wooden floor towards team Gai. He wore his grey hair up in a top knot and he wore long robes of green with cream trousers underneath. "My name is Hui I am this villages elder what is it that you require?"

"We would like to talk with you in private" Neji replied.

"Very well" Hui replied. "Come this way it leads to my private chamber."

Team Gai walked behind the old man towards the room he had gestured to whilst ignoring the mutterings around them.

"Not blind? How can he not be blind?"

"Where are they from? The girl's clothes look like they are from the Earth kingdom like Song's, but what of the others? The colours are right, but I've never seen them before."

"What do you think that symbol on those metal plates means?"

"Are they wearing sandals?"

"Look at their hair!"

Hui then proceeded to close the door cutting out the babble from outside. He sat down cross legged on the floor and indicated for team Gai to follow suit. Lee and Tenten sat down whereas Neji leaned against one of the white walls.

"Sorry about that, we get a lot of visitors, but none look like you. Ah no offense meant!" Hui started.

"None taken" Neji replied. "We didn't expect to be recognised, but we would like information. What is this war about? My companions and I are... a little out of tune with the world."

"Yes, so I gathered from your conversation with Song, but you must tell me where are you from? And what are those metal bands?"

"These are symbols of our village" Lee burst out. "These signify that we are qualified adults."

"And what is you village? Where is it?"

"We'd rather not say" Tenten said. "Not with the war on and everything."

"What are you from the fire nation!?" Hui exclaimed laughing so he missed the odd looks on team Gai's faces.

"Anyway" Lee asked "What is this war?"

"Well" Hui answered. "You know there are the four countries?" He paused to check on his audience and seeing them nodding he continued. "Well when the previous avatar died the fire nation attacked and wiped out the air nomads. They then began a war on the rest of the world to conquer it all. The fire nation is full of power hungry idiots who will do anything to take over the world, I'd steer clear of them if I were you."

"Yes, we'll keep that in mind." Neji replied. "So does this village have some problems? We might be able to help we were fighters at our village."

"Ah well as you can see this is an open village. With the war going on there are no soldiers to protect us and just recently after a young man and his uncle moved through a group of Fire Nation cavalry moved in and began terrorizing the villagers. I fear they might be after the pair that recently moved from this village, but I don't know for certain as they could be after our savoir the avatar."

"So if we take care of this problem for you, could you compensate us? We need money" Asked Neji.

"I will ask around the villagers hold on." Hui said whilst standing up. He slid open the wooden door before carefully closing it.

"So Neji" Tenten asked "are we really planning on taking these guys on?"

"Of course Tenten, Lee looks dead set on helping these people." Neji replied pointing at Lee who had fire burning in his eyes.

"Yosh! I will show these unyouthful ruffians the might of the beautiful green beast of Konoha!" Lee semi – yelled as Neji's glare prevented him from screaming at the top of his lungs in order to not scare the people in the next room.

"There is a war going on... how do we know we have not chosen the wrong side to help?" asked Tenten.

"We don't" was Neji's reply. "However, the avatar seems to be trying to bring balance to this world and balance will mean peace. From what we've gathered this 'Fire Nation' started the war and besides the avatar seems to be on the opposite side from the Fire Nation so we must align ourselves accordingly."

Their conversation was interrupted by Hui re-entering the room.

"I have talked with the visitors and we have agreed. We will pay you a hundred Earth Kingdom gold coins if you can rid us of this Fire Nation menace." Hui said.

"Consider it done" Neji said getting up off the wall. "Lee, Tenten we need to go find this menace. We will bring back a helmet as proof of our accomplishment."

The three shinobi walked out the building and pleat onto the top of the village hall.

"Byakugan!" Neji said as he began scanning the nearby area. "Got you! Lee, Tenten this way!" Neji commanded jumping off towards the north and the tree dotted mountains that way.

***

Colonel Mongke was an aggressive man, but if you asked his men in the Rough Rhinos they would say that he could be a compassionate and caring leader; this meant that he would listen to what towns they wanted to attack and which fighters were 'theirs' instead of just blasting them out of their saddles. In the fire nation army this was about the best treatment you could hope to receive, unless that is of course you had worked under the infamous 'Dragon of the West' Iroh, but according to people not in the know he was retired, to everyone in the know he was someone to hunt down and kill. As a traitor for the Fire Nation and because he was from the Fire Nation to everyone else, except of course for the Order of the White Lotus. The other thing the Rough Rhinos would say about their leader is that he is quite a good singer especially in fact when he had backup singers as it would really bring out his baritone voice. Other than that general knowledge depicted him as a ruthless tactician who would mercilessly attack Earth Kingdom settlements with his men when he knew he had the best chance of victory. He was a skilled fire bender and loved war. He was also after the avatar and the traitors to the Fire Nation. He had black hair tied back and an orange feather cresting his head and gold eyes. He wore standard fire nation armour and a very interesting look of shock as to his surprise two men jumped out of the trees coming from the direction of the town his was pillaging for fun so hadn't fully attacked it yet with the intention to raze it. He didn't think anyone would find him in this clearing at the base of the mountain and he also thought that no one would be stupid enough to attack the Rough Rhinos. His first thought had been proven wrong and so was his second thought when he heard the lead man who had a commanding aura, despite his stupid robes and girly hair, spoke in a calm, clear voice.

"Hello. Are you the Rough Rhinos? Because if you are we have business with you."

***

Neji lead his team into the forest surrounding the base of the huge mountain in front of him. It looked bigger than the mountain the Hokage faces were sculpted on, guess this wasn't called the Earth Kingdom for nothing, it was exactly like the country of Iwa (or the land of Earth) back home. Neji briefly wondered what was happening back home and also what would happen when they ran out of rock to sculpt the Hokage's faces on. Team Gai were barely travelling for five minutes albeit their pace was quick given Lee's enthusiasm to prove his youthfulness. They leapt out into the open to question the group of five men and Rhinos in front of them. These had to be the targets, but Neji wanted to make sure first. He and Lee decided to approach them, but he kept Tenten hidden as backup should anything go wrong. He looked at the five men, sending a critical eye over their weapons consisting of a bow, a halberd, a chain, a bag of explosives (he was thankful that the Byakugan enabled him to see through the bags skin) and the last person, the leader given the body language of the five men, seemed to want to fight unarmed.

'Wait' Neji thought. 'Could he use this bending? We better be careful.' Neji quickly used had symbols to convey his thoughts and what weapons one of the men possessed to Lee and Tenten as they couldn't see inside the pouches on the side of his Rhino. 'This could be a good chance to observe this bending' Neji thought ready to use his Byakugan to focus on the leader incase he tried it as he carried no concealed weapons. The others he hoped Lee and Tenten could take care of, Tenten should find this interesting as they all seemed to have interesting, at least Neji supposed Tenten would find them interesting, weapons and they looked like they knew how to use them.

Neji decided to address them.

"Hello. Are you the Rough Rhinos? Because if you are we have business with you." He said.

***

Colonel Mongke was shocked, just who were these men who would calmly approach his group like this knowing who they were? He was slightly disgusted by their leaders eyes as well, the nerves standing out around them were putting him off. Was he blind? He looked like he was trying to squint, but surely that wouldn't help a blind person would it? He was also slightly mortified by his companions wardrobe choice, was that green spandex? His musings however were called off yet again by the man in the white robes speaking again.

"Are you the Rough Rhinos?"

"So what if we are?" Mongke fired back in an incredibly calm voice for all his inner turmoil. He signalled his riders to get ready to fight if the stranger attacked them, no doubt he had backup somewhere this forest was perfect for an ambush. He began scanning the trees whilst wondering where these two men came from, their clothing styles matched no previous information he had and they both wore the same strange metal plate.

"Cease your attacks on the nearby village or we will be forced to stop you." Mongke's eyes snapped back to the white eyed man.

"Make us blindy he sneered what are you gonna do stumble about?" He sneered. ""Ogodai! Kahchi! Attack that spandex wearing moron! Yeh-Lu, Vachir scout the forest nearby and get rid of any reinforcements blow it up if you have to!, I'll handle the blind one!" Mongke yelled whilst vaulting sideways onto his Rhino. With a swift kick to its read parts the Rhino yelped and charged forwards. "Die fool!" Mongke screamed whilst throwing his hands back as fire lit around them.

***

Neji was stunned. This guy was almost as good as Shikamaru to have already thought about their being someone in the woods and to have sent the ones who could easily smoke Tenten out of her cover with fire and explosives, it was impressive he admitted, but he called him blind and so for that he would pay as Neji's Hyuga pride demanded it. No one insulted the Hyuga eyes and their sight.

"You're the fool! My eyesight is far superior to yours! Give it up, you haven't a chance. Team Gai move out!" Neji yelled in reply.

He saw Mongke advance towards him as Lee leapt out of his peripheral vision. First he would have to take out that Rhino...

***

Mongke charged towards his prey, so what if he wasn't blind? He must have been bluffing about the better eyesight though with all that squinting so hard the veins came out. His hands were burning with excitement to extinguish his poor opponents life, but then he dropped into an unusual stance. A stance that Mongke could only remember seeing once before, in history scrolls detailing the airbenders. This guy didn't have the arrows so he couldn't be one surely? But the stance was exactly the same... His opponent moved through the stances slamming his palms forward in unison.

"Eight trigrams empty palm!" As he cried this a blast of air flew forward and slammed into Mongke's rhino forcefully making him dismount, by blasting his rhino out from under him and sending him flying forwards. Mongke however was not a master firebender for nothing he kicked sharply backwards making him flip over the robed man and land on his feet.

"What in the name of Ozai are you?! Your stances, your attack just now there's no way it's possible, but are you an airbender?"

"You are mistaken" was the reply. "My style could be similar, but I am not an airbender."

"You must be!" Mongke cried. "That attack just now! That blast of air!"

His opponent disappeared from view.

"Well then, you'll just have to live never knowing." He heard... behind him! Mongke launched his elbows backwards to deliver two elbow strikes by pulling his arms in next to his hips. Two arrowheads of fire shot backwards only to crash against a rock, Mongke turned with his left leg rising into a freestyle round kick to deliver a blade of fire to a log?

"Can't you calm down whilst fighting? Or are all you fire nation so hot headed?" That bastard Mongke thought spinning again this time to deliver a backwards freestyle round kick with his heel. Again a blade of fire materialized out of nowhere and shot forwards and again his opponent danced out of its reach.

"I'll get you if it's the last thing I do!" Mongke yelled launching a barrage of kicks and punches each generating an orb of fire that shot forwards.

"These poor trees..." his opponent said shaking his head. This was followed by him throwing a bundle up in the air and then spinning his whole body around yelling "Eight trigrams palms heavenly spin!" The fire balls impacted upon the barrier thrown up and Mongke was astonished, so this guy was an airbender! Wait they were extinct apart from the avatar though... and he could see the barrier it was, blue? That wasn't wind what was it? Wait what was in that bundle? It looked metallic and indeed Mongke was right as the bundle that he had seen being thrown up earlier was now descending and with the sun beaming down on it the bundle did look like it was made of metal, and it was sharp.

"damn throwing knives!" Mongke realised as his opponents defensive technique was changed to offensive as instead of dispersing his fireballs it was now spreading his throwing knives as he had made them land at such an angle that they would be shot out in all directions so dodging was not an option. Unfortunately for Mongke firebending is not known for being great on the defensive, especially against so many small projectiles. Mangke could only cross his arms in front of his face and hope his armour was up to the task as knives speed past him, cutting into his arms and legs and anywhere else left exposed. A few landed in his armour and pierced through both it and his skin. Blood started pooling in the gaps in his armour and began dripping onto the floor. Three more chinks of metal hitting metal could be heard and then it stopped. Mongke opened his eyes and lowered his arms and noticed three things. One his opponent had stopped spinning and wore a triumphant look, two knives littered the area, but luckily his rhino and escaped as the corpse was not lying about and three he heard a crackling sound, like when his subordinate Yeh-Lu had lit his explosives. He looked down there were three more throwing knives with paper attached to them. Bits of paper with characters and symbols on them that were rapidly being consumed by a sparkling fire.

A large explosion rang out through the clearing.

***

Neji watched with morbid fascination as his opponent went up in fire and smoke. They were quite large and potent exploding tags he supposed. He approached the body, both surprised and not surprised by what he saw.

"Hn. Quite resourceful covering your body in flames, a suicidal defensive technique, but admirable as it has saved you. Of course I didn't expect anything less from you, you did seem quite powerful, maybe another time you might get close to beating me." Neji reached down to pluck the orange feather from the burnt remains of his head. "That fire was very controlled, you seem to still be alive even after igniting it under you armour. It even cauterised all your wounds! Your bending was impressive and it was good for me to observe it with my Byakugan. Farewell." Neji finished his monologue and leapt into the trees away from the clearing to find his teammates.

***

"This should be far enough" Lee said as he vaulted upwards grabbed a tree branch and proceeded to swing around it before flipping off and turning around mid flip to face his two opponents. He raised one hand behind him and one in front palm up in his signature pre battle stance.

"Come at me, my youthfulness will allow me to beat both of you at the same time!" Lee challenged.

"Well well the spandex freak thinks he can take us!" His opponent with a braid responded hefting his chain up and beginning to spin it round until it picked up enough momentum to become a blur.

"I'll crush you with my rhino after knocking you out of that tree!" He yelled throwing his chain out. It hurtled towards Lee's branch, but the taijutsu master simply back flipped out of the way.

"It is most unyouthful to insult your opponents." Lee chided as he landed again perfectly on a branch behind him.

"A useful trick" commented Lee's other opponent who had long brown hair, beard and moustache. He unsheathed his halberd from his rhino, pointing it at Lee. "You agility is powerful, you are seem almost as capable as the rumours of Ty Lee are. Still you oppose us the Rough Rhinos so you shall perish!" With that comment He launched himself from his rhino to gain momentum for his halberd before throwing it out at Lee. Lee leapt out to the side to dodge but then had to twist in mid-air as the chain arced towards him. Lee watched as the two men grinned and looked back to the chain which after completing its arc past him and wrapped around the halberd in the air and proceeded to pull the halberd back towards Lee.

"Very good!" Lee yelled getting out a kunai. "You are most youthful in your teamwork!" He parried the downward blow from the halberd and landed in a squatting position on the ground.

"Well then shall we get started!" Yelled the braided adversary. "Your good kid, but we're better. As an honour I'll tell you the names of the men who will kill you!" He jabbed his thumb at himself with one hand whilst the other kept circling the chain. "I'm Ogodei and this is Kahchi!"

"Thank you my youthful adversaries, however I will not allow myself to lose!" Lee yelled rushing towards the rhino riders. He reached back to grab some shuriken and he threw three at Ogodei whilst flipping over Kahchi's thrust. He grabbed the halberd's wooden handle and proceeded to spin around to kick the wielder of the weapon. His foot landed square in Kahchi's jaw sending him flying into a tree whilst Lee jumped of the weapon and threw two more shuriken at Ogodei. The chain wielder brought up his weapon to form a make-shift shield as the spinning blocked the frontal attack. Lee however had managed to jump behind him and was know perched on the rhino's tail. He raised his leg and it lashed out like a coiled snake hitting his opponent back and sent him flying into another tree.

"Don't think you've won yet!" Ogodei cried lashing out with his chain again and it arced towards Lee's legs. Lee easily jumped over it, but then had to grab the halberd's shaft as it was yet again thrust at him. Lee grabbed the halberd and held it so that it went past his right flank.

"Yosh! Your teamwork is most impressive!" Lee said landing after his jump and swinging the halberd and its user over his shoulder to send him crashing down onto the ground.

"Kahchi!" Ogodei yelled, sending his chain whipping out towards Lee now with no semblance of control. Lee jumped up high into the air, landed on the underside of a branch and kicked off he prepared for a jump kick whilst hurtling down towards Ogodei's shocked form.

"Dynamic entry!" Lee yelled his foot impacting on Ogodei's face sending him flying backwards until he too lay unmoving on the ground.

"That was a most youthful fight, but now I must leave." Lee said pausing only to remove the small piece of metal holding together Ogodei's braid.

***

"So, ranged combat huh?" Tenten questioned seeing her two opponents getting ready to fire arrows and throw dynamite respectively. "I won't lose!" She claimed jumping up and spreading her body out in the air to throw a large amount of senbon needles at her opponents. The arches initial arrow was caught and knocked off course and so landed pathetically in the mud near the trees where Tenten had been hiding. The dynamite however blow up in the middle of the senbon storm and sent the needles scattering off harmlessly. The archer had already knocked another arrow by this point and fired it at her only for Tenten to deflect it with a well placed kunai.

"You're almost as accurate as the Yu Yan archers!" commented the opponent with the bow.

"I hope that was a complement because I've never heard of these archers before" Tenten replied landing on a tree. She could hear a battle off to here left and deduced it was Lee by the shouts about 'youthfulness'.

"The archers are extremely accurate, they could pin a fly to a tree from one hundred yards away without killing it!"

"That is pretty impressive" Tenten mused before leaping away from her branch. An explosion rocked the tree a second afterwards sending the branch after Tenten, almost as if it were after revenge for being trodden on. Tenten sent a kunai at the branch breaking it in two before heading towards the explosives expert. He leapt out of the way whilst Tenten began throwing more kunai at him. These impacted around him and forced him to jump up off his rhino which thankfully had withstood the kunai barrage. However after jumping off his rhino a kunai whizzed above his head. He looked up to see two small paper balls attached via strings to the kunai's handle and being an explosives expert he knew what they were. The balls exploded in an orb of light sending the member of the Rough Riders careening into the ground. The archer witnessed this and sent several arrows arching into the air to descend upon Tenten from above. Tenten reached into a concealed pouch and pulled out more shuriken throwing stars to counter the arrows. She fell onto another branch and again leapt off and over the last remaining Rough Rider sending throwing stars at him. The archer countered by blocking with his bow. Tenten had predicted this though and had sent another throwing star at him after she landed on his blind side. This star whizzed through the air and cut the bow's string in half. Tenten then leapt forward drawing a bō staff out of one of her scrolls as she did so in a puff of smoke. The bō staff crashed into the archers skull sending him sprawling onto the ground.

"Too easy!" Tenten commented, pocketing the archer's headband and the explosive users now slightly dented helmet.

***

Team Gai assembled in the trees overlooking the clearing which had been strewn with kunai after Neji's battle.

"Did you get proof of your victory?" Neji asked.

"Yes" was his reply from both Lee and Tenten producing their spoils.

"What do we do with the riders now Neji?" asked Lee.

"Put them on their rhinos and chase the rhinos away from town. I'll leave a note with the leader explaining that if he comes back we will kill them next time."

"Roger!"

***

Team Gai walked back towards the town centre and the village hall whilst receiving looks of shock and awe.

Hui greeted them at the tree in front of the village hall.

"You've returned" he exclaimed. "And you were victorious! I had feared we had sent you to your doom, we all feared the worst."

Song then came running out, her fear stricken face turned to one of awe.

"Amazing, there isn't a scratch on you!" she said.

"Here is the proof I promised." Neji stated dropping the feather and other headwear the riders had worn.

"Yes, yes thank you it means so much to us." Hui told the shinobi. "Here is the money you were promised." A small bag was passed to Neji who stored it inside his Hyuga robes.

"Glad we could be of service." Neji said turning with his team to leave.

"Wait one more thing" Tenten piqued up. "Do you know where we can find the avatar?"

"Sorry I can't tell you" Hui said looking dejected.

"No problem" Lee replied. Team Gai started walking away from the village.

"At least we've got money now, but we really need information." Neji stated.

"Wait!" came a cry from behind them. The three turned to see Song running after them.

"I wanted to thank you for restoring my faith in strangers and people in general." She said. "I don't know how helpful this will be, but there is an earthbending tournament being held in Gaoling to the south, the avatar may head there to try and find some strong earthbenders to join his group and maybe even a teacher."

"What do you say Neji?" asked Tenten.

"We have no other leads" Neji replied. "Sure why not"

"Yosh! A tournament, maybe I will get to prove my youthfulness in it as well!" Lee exclaimed. "Thank you for the information, you are most youthful Song" and with that Lee began dashing off.

"Oi wait Lee!" Tenten called running after them.

Neji sighed. "I wish he'd wait." Neji stated. "That way is north." And Song watched as Tenten collared Lee and began trying to drag him back to Neji, before he dashed back of his own accord after checking his compass.

"Maybe there is hope for the world" Song stated. Watching the trio vanish into the sunset as they walked south towards a mountain range.

* * *

Just some random info here. The gentle fist style in Naruto and airbending in Avatar are both based off the real style of Baguazhang.


	3. Earth Rumble VI

Sorry for being so late with this upload.

Again I own nothing in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender toMichael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

* * *

The three ninja stood proud atop one of the many mountains peaks, the mountains in this area where roughly the same size as the Hokage monument except these rose up in tall craggy spires. From their vantage point they could easily observe the town situated below them. Mountains flanked this town on all sides with foliage dotted around the area.

"This is the place." Announced Neji his Byakugan deactivating "Welcome to Gaoling."

"Alright let us go!" Lee spoke up. "Neji I will race you to the town!" was heard as a green blur started heading down the mountain.

"Oh great not again. Lee wait up!" Tenten cried following after Lee. Sighing Neji too dropped down from his position on top of the mountain and begin the long descent to the bottom.

This town despite being in a war had no security thought Neji and he said this as they walked straight into the town from the street with no guards or anything trying to stop them.

"Your right Neji this could get them killed" Tenten replied.

"They probably think the mountains will protect them, but relying only on that is going to get them killed." Neji replied looking around the town.

"Alright, since this is quite a large town and we don't know how much time we have left we're going to split up." Neji commanded. "There's a tea shop over there we can meet up there in two hours clear?"

"Yes Neji!" was his response before each member of team Gai chose a path and began walking away.

Neji walked down the street calming observing the activities around him with his peripheral vision, no need to freak people out with the Byakugan he didn't need it for this level of observation. He started thinking about their financial situation since they had been forced to buy supplies from towns on the way to Gaoling they were beginning to run low on money. He passed a corner store catching a glimpse of three young teenagers, two dressed in blue arguing over a bag and one dressed like Naruto with a hat pulled over his head. Dismissing it as a regular scene as no one else nearby seemed to be paying it much attention he cursed the lack of information he had. Sure he knew he needed to find the avatar, but he didn't know what he looked like. Since he was so famous people had just assumed he would know what he looked like. Hopefully they could get some information on that later Neji thought as he turned round a corner and noticed a good way to make some money. Squatting amongst the wooden houses of the town stood a table with a man standing behind it. The man wore light brown trousers and a darker brown tunic, he wore a green belt with green cloth squares hanging off and his black hair was up in a top knot. He had two swords rested against his bazaar and three cups were resting on top of the table. There was a crowd of people gathered around and by the sounds of disgust and moans they were making it was easy to deduce that they were being scammed.

"Come on come on gather round just guess where the ball is and win a prize. Hey you there with the long hair yes you want to play? It doesn't matter if your blind I'll show you the cups and all you have to do is guess where the ball is!"

Neji approached the table deciding that this would be a very good way to earn money as well as stopping this scam artist, two birds one Byakugan. The crowd started muttering as he stood in front of the table, he touched the cups with his hands to fool the con man into thinking that he was blind. The man quickly shuffled the cups oblivious to the fact that Neji had activated his Byakugan and was watching every move with ease. He had placed his hands over his eyes to block out the veins so no one could notice.

"Ok which cup has the ball?" The con man asked smirking. Whilst the crowd started to complain amongst themselves about how unfair this was. Neji however pointed straight to the right cup unfazed and was rewarded with a look of pure annoyance from the man as he lifted it to reveal the ball.

"Want to try again, double or quits? Whilst you're still lucky of course." He asked preparing the cups again.

"Of course" replied Neji preparing to activate his Byakugan again. The same trick happened again as Neji observed the ball from behind the safety of his hands. He saw the man quickly swap the cups around, but when he got towards the end he stealthily managed to flick the ball into his sleeve. Then with a great flourish he set the cups down.

"So where is the ball?" He asked grinning at his so thought victory.

"Let's see I think it's in..." Neji began miming thinking whilst moving his hand from cup to cup. Eventually he stopped and looked up. "Your right sleeve."

***

This blind brat may have gotten lucky last time, but this time I'll show him just how a great trickster I am. The con man thought watching him cover his eyes, as if that will help him. He began switching the cups as fast as he could, then with one flick of the wrist the ball flew into his sleeve. He placed the cups in their final resting positions.

"So where is the ball?" He asked thinking about how much money he was going to get off this idiot, it would almost make up for being attacked recently. The kid seemed indecisive; this was getting better he thought. All the more fun when he picks the wrong cup. However what he said shocked the man.

"Your right sleeve."

"WHAT!" The con man exclaimed and jerking his body in shock. Unfortunately this sudden movement caused his arms and more importantly his sleeves to move in an upwards motion sending a small object hurtling out of the right one in full view of the crowd.

***

Neji smirked as the man jerked his arm revealing the ball.

"Can I have my money now" he asked calmly before picking up his winnings from beside the stunned man. Before he left the man to the tender mercies of the angered crowd he heard the man mutter something about unfair life and being attack and robbed by a man in a blue mask after making an old man dance for money.

Lee walked through the city looking left and right. The town was truly a sight to see with the beauty carved into the paper and wood building materials. After they had split up Lee had decided to walk towards the town centre to pick up information. As he walked along the dirt streets he was approached by a man dressed in green holding a sheaf of papers.

"Come to Master Yu's Earthbending academy you get one free lesson with this coupon" said the man handing Lee one of the papers before rushing off.

'This will be a great opportunity to learn about this earthbending fighting style' thought Lee as he carried on his exploration of the town.

***

The bell jingled as a figure stepped into the Emerald Leaf tea shop. Jia looked up from behind the counter to see the figure move towards a table which housed two other customers who had yet to order, they must have been waiting for this comrade as when the third figure joined them the male with long hair raised his hand. Jia approached them noting that the newcomer was just as strangely dressed as the other two if not more so in the tight green material. He carried a piece of paper in his hand and seemed to be making excited gestures to the text contained on it. Jia stepped around the wooden tables to answer the man's call. In all honesty when she had seen the man first enter she had been confused as to what gender he belonged to. She had thought of him as a her, but this only lasted until he spoke which easily dispelled any illusions that he could be a she. He had told her that he needed a table for three and not to bother him until he called for her. With that he had moved over to his table and sat down, closing his eyes and seeming to meditate. When the second person had entered, the girl he had immediately signalled her over and began talking to her. This third person had confused Jia even more as none of the three wore any clothes consistent with the four nations let alone each other except for the headband.

"Can I take your order now?" Jia asked as she approached the table causing three sets of eyes to turn on her.

"Do you have curry?" asked the latest arrival before getting elbowed by the girl. Jia thought she heard a faint whisper along the lines of 'not again Lee' but she dismissed it as none of her business before turning to the other person who simply asked for three cups of green tea. As she turned to fetch their order Jia could hear the sounds of their conversation restarting.

***

"So what do you think Neji? Is it worth checking out?" Lee asked as soon as the serving girl had left pointing at the flyer on the table.

"Yes Lee, you've convinced me you can go to this academy as we need to learn about this earthbending I've already said you could go." Was Neji's exasperated reply.

"Alright!" Lee exclaimed you could almost see diamonds appear next to him to show how excited he was. Almost.

"Anyway, did any of you find out where this eathbending tournament was taking place? This Earth Rumble VI." Neji asked his comrades, although it was aimed at Tenten more as Lee was too busy thinking about the new fighting style he would get to learn about.

"I did Neji" Tenten replied. "It's being held in a mountain this evening."

"Excellent." Neji responded. "Lee can take his class and we can do a bit more research before heading there."

"Good plan Neji, ah thanks" Lee said taking his tea from the girl.

"Yes thanks" Neji said whilst receiving his tea and digging around in his satchel to find not only the correct amount of change, but also the correct currency. "Lee Tenten and I will go with you to this academy and research around that area as I don't think any of us have been there yet."

"Ok Neji" were his two replies before Team Gai started chatting about less important things as they enjoyed their green tea.

***

Lee entered the academy with anticipation as he was always ready and willing to learn new techniques. He was however a little distraught at the fact that he had been forced to make alterations to his clothing to enter the training area. When he had entered he had been ushered into a hat and tunic which had covered his jumpsuit, but he was happy he still got to wear the jump suit passed down from Gai – sensei. The students were assembled in a courtyard and Lee easily towered over the rest of the students as he was obviously older then everyone including the dumbstruck kid with blue arrows covering his body. Master Yu began walking down in-between the two ranks of kids instructing them in earthbending.

"Take your stances" he commanded leaving Lee and the kid with the arrows not knowing what to do.

"Now attack as if punching through your opponents head!" Yu yelled which caused the students with rocks hovering in front of them to punch forward. Lee realised that he was not going to learn anything here so he would improvise. As the other kids replied with defensive earthbending Lee jumped up and hooked the attacking rock with his foot he then flipped onto his hands and with the momentum of raising his legs above him kicked the rock high into the air where it impacted on the walls surrounding the academy smashing the rock apart and chipping off part of the wall. Lee finished his flip to see that the other kid who did not know what to do had been smashed into a nearby vase causing its contents to leak out over him and submerge him in dirt and pottery.

"So are you ready to commit to further lessons? If you pay in advance I'll bump you up to the next belt." Master Yu said to the prone boy and then turned and said it to Lee.

"I will turn down your offer" Lee replied before heading towards the changing rooms.

Whilst Master Yu was teaching Tenten and Neji lingered in the area around the academy for a while. Soon however they found out that the area only contained the academy and a forest with the nearest other buildings being a block of cheap houses where no one lived anymore. So they resorted to resting on one of the benches outside the academy. It appeared they were not the only ones doing this as Neji noticed two of the teenagers he had seen earlier wearing blue resting on the other bench. Neji and Tenten left them to their own business and were quite surprised when it didn't take long for Lee to rejoin them stating that they would not learn anything from master Yu here. The three shinobi turned to leave when they overheard a conversation about who would be a good master of earthbending. They saw two people in blue and one in yellow robes talk about Earth Rumble VI with two of the students, but figuring it had nothing to do with them team Gai left to head towards the mountain arena to get their own tickets.

Team Gai soon made it to the opening in the mountain where the tournament was taking pace and upon entering they were amazed by the size of the stadium. Most of the mountain had been hollowed out and rapidly filling stands surrounded a square stadium that stood a good number of feet off the ground. The team took their seats in the middle of the stands and watched as the group of teenagers that they now appeared to be stalking took front rows seats whilst questioning why no one else was sitting there. The question was answered as a boulder as tall as Gai sensei crashed down next to them. Dust and boulders were being kicked up from the centre of the arena until a man with long black hair and a green tunic raised the earth beneath him up and announced.

"Welcome to Earth Rumble VI! I am your host Xin Fu! The rules are simple, just knock the other guy out of the ring and you win!" Xin Fu then began to narrate the fights between the other competitors.

"This is quite an interesting fighting style." Neji commented as the token 'bad guy' was easily dispatched. "They seem to be building this off stances of what could be a normal martial art discipline except they can use their chakra to amplify their movements and control the earth."

"What are you saying Neji my eternal rival? Could I learn the basics of this style?" Lee asked eager to learn more to impress Gai sensei and his love interest Sakura.

"Yes Lee you could certainly learn the moves and adapt them for your own fighting style" Neji replied as more opponents were easily dispatched by the so called 'Boulder'. Neji noticed that the group in front were discussing getting an earthbending teacher and he pointed it out.

"You're right Neji" Tenten replied. "Do you think one of them could be the avatar?"

"It's certainly a possibility" Neji conceded. "We'll have to ask them later to gain some more solid information."

The tournament continued on predictably with the 'Boulder' winning every match he was in. This continued until an usual challenger appeared. After the unusual creatures, 'they're badger moles they're not unusual' came from the stands near team Gai when the noted this, cleared the stadium Xin Fu began to announce the next fight.

"Now the moment you've all been waiting for the Boulder vs. your champion the Blind Bandit!" As Xin Fu finished his speech a young girl emerged wearing a dark green cloak and holding a dark green and yellow belt aloft. She also wore no shoes and had green and yellow clothes which became easily visible after the two women on the stage removed the cloak and belt so the Blind Bandit could fight. The most striking feature however was her eyes as they were pale green and pupil less. The exact same question got asked by the female member of team Gai and the blue clothed female in the group a few rows down.

"She's not really blind is she? It's just part of her character right.."

Neji turned to face Tenten his Byakugan still active. "She is Tenten, unlike me she is blind."

"But she's fighting." Tenten replied.

"Yes. I would imagine she has some other way of finding her opponents. Perhaps she has an advanced sense of hearing so she can hear their moves."

Whilst this conversation was going on the fight was starting in the ring below.

"The Boulder is conflicted about fighting a young blind girl."

"Sounds to me like your scared Boulder."

"The Boulder's over his conflicted feelings and now he's ready to bury you in a rockalanche!"

"Whenever you're ready, the Pebble! Hahaha"

"It's on!" and with this the taunting was finished and the fight began. The Boulder began to step forwards and as he placed is foot on the ground and readied his attack the Blind Bandit moved in time and sent a counter which misplaced the Boulder's footing making him forcibly do a splits which given by his face caused unimaginable pain.

"Interesting." Neji said focussing on not only the Blind Bandit and the Boulder, but also the ground near them. "She used her chakra with her bending to locate him, in other words she can see via the earth!"

"That's amazing" Tenten said. "If a shinobi could do that they would become almost impossible to sneak up on."

After immobilising the Boulder the Blind Bandit sent three pillars of rock to finish the job and sent him flying out of the ring.

"Your winner and still the champion the Blind Bandit!" Xin Fu cried before jumping down from his podium onto the ring.

"To make things a little more interesting I'm offering up this sack of gold pieces to anyone who can defeat the Blind Bandit." The crowd murmured no one daring to take up the offer. Well almost no one as two cries were heard one after another.

"I will! To prove my youthfulness!" Lee cried leaping and flipping to land gracefully on the stage and he adopted his signature pre fight pose with one hand behind his back and one raised in front of him. The other cry of acceptance came from the other newcomer at the academy who simply walked onto the arena.

"Do people really want to see two girls fight out here?" The Blind Bandit said directing her gaze at the Bald headed kid.

"I don't wanna fight you I just want to talk... by the way I'm Aang!" The kid said.

"And I am Rock Lee!" Rock Lee chirped in.

"Oh great another rock to crush." The Blind Bandit said this time looking in Lee's general direction and with this she sent two bursts of earth erupting from under Aang and Lee. Aang jumped off and used his airbending to hover around the arena confusing the Blind Bandit.

"Somebody's a little light on his feet, what's your fighting name the fancy dancer?" said the Blind bandit turning to face and attack Aang again with erupting earth. She then turned to face where Lee had jumped to.

"and what's yours? The skipper?"

"I am the beautiful green beast of Konoha!" Lee responded charging the Blind Bandit. "and I would appreciate it if you did not taunt me!" and with this he leapt high above the Blind Bandit and raised his leg for an axe kick. The Blind Bandit however created a dome of earth around her as she felt Lee leave the ground.

"Time to test Neji's theory about how you see." Lee mumbled to himself as he began channelling chakra to his feet like a ninja who was about to walk on walls or water.

"What! Where have you gone... there you are, but you're all fuzzy!" The Blind Bandit exclaimed as Rock Lee's chakra interfered with his connection to the earth lessening the Blind Bandit's visibility of him. Still she knew where about he was and launched a boulder at him whilst turning to face Aang again.

"Where'd you go... Found you! Even with two on one I'll win!" She said.

"Please wait, I just want to talk" Aang emphasised again as he leapt out the way of another boulder sent his way. He twisted in mid-air and sent out a blast of Airbender which rocketed into the Blind Bandit knocking her off her feet and sending her crashing into the floor. The Airbender attack had also caught Lee as he flipped out of the way of the Blind Bandit's projectiles and he too was sent flying out of the ring, however he managed to turn and land on a wall before dropping down and assuming his 'nice guy' pose proclaiming.

"You have beaten me my youthful adversary, I hope we meet again."

As the shock left everyone in the stadium including the Boulder who had been watching, Aang's companions and Xin Fu Aang straightened up and began to run after the Blind Bandit.

"Listen, I need an earthbending teacher and I think it's supposed to be you" He cried.

"Whoever you are please leave me alone." Was his response as the Blind Bandit stomped on the ground creating an exit for here which she promptly disappeared into.

"Wait!" Aang cried knowing it was too late. Aang trudged back onto the stage and his male companion eagerly took the belt and money from the reluctant Xin Fu.

Whilst Aang mourned the loss of his chance to gain a possible earthbending teacher team Gai headed towards the exit to find an inn to stay the night in.

***

The sun rose over the town, casting shadows and chasing the darkness. The long shadows hid behind paper and wood buildings hiding what needed to be hidden and creating two dimensional monsters that ate up anything that approached. Three figures stood engulfed in the shadows.

"We need to find the avatar." Neji said. "Split up and search all over town for him. Question anyone you can on his appearance, companions, where they saw him anything. We know he came here and I checked that nobody left town by any means so he must still be here."

"If he was here he probably was at the Earth Rumble VI tournament." Lee interjected. "I will search the tournament grounds for any information."

"Good idea Lee, whilst you are doing that Tenten and I will scour the village meet up at the Emerald Leaf tea shop again for a de-briefing at lunch. We can't fail now move out!" Neji commanded.

"Roger!"

In the mountainous area that housed the tournament grounds two figures met up. They had their backs to the entrance which gleamed with light, though the light did not look like it came from the main heavenly body circling the world. As they discussed a disturbance flickered across the light creating a brief moment of darkness before disappearing. One of the figures turned around casting a weary glance across the entrance tunnel before returning his attention to his companion's speech.

"I'm telling you, The Boulder was standing right there. I saw the kid strike, but there was no earthbending. Nothing made contact. The Blind Bandit and the other kid just fell out of the ring. They must have taken a dive and split the money with the kid."

The other man slammed his fist into the rocks next to him creating a minor shockwave and causing them to crumble and fall. Some landed on his foot creating pain for the man. This was short lived however as his face assumed a persona of utmost rage. He raised his head glaring at the opposite end of the stadium.

"Nobody cheats Xin Fu."

With that the two men walked deeper into the stadium and came out with five more people and they left dragging two large metal crates.

"Alright men we need to go and capture 'the Blind Bandit' or Toph Bei Fong and the other two kids, one is apparently the avatar so be careful!" Xin Fu yelled before leading his men out.

After the team of angry earthbenders left the shadow dropped down from the ceiling.

"This is most unyouthful, I would not take a dive in an honourable fight and neither did this Toph Bei Fong... On a separate note I now know who the avatar is! Alright I must get this information to Neji!" Lee exclaimed watching the retreating backs of the earthbenders with a concerned face.

"First I should check out the administration here... knowledge is power after all."

***

Shinobi are trained for all sorts of missions: assassination, theft, bodyguards and gaining information is invaluable to all these missions. So Neji and Tenten's searching of the city had turned up some information on the town and important earthbenders that might be approached by the avatar. Neji had been planning a stake out ever since he learned this, but as soon as he heard Lee's information the plan became much more focussed on one location. The Bei Fong mansion.

"It turns out that we were right on the mark. The avatar's here all right." Neji said veins bulging against his skin showing the signs of an activated Byakugan. To most people this would be an abnormal situation and would be repulsed and despise it, but to his comrades it offered a sense of security and reassurance that their teammate was working well.

"We need to get in that mansion, but how... noble families don't take well to random people showing up do they? The avatar would manage, but I don't think we'll be as lucky." Tenten commented.

"Yes in noble families you would have to arrange a meeting to get past the front gates." Neji replied.

"Do you have any idea how we can get in Neji?" Lee asked. "You are from the Hyuga clan. Their status might not mean much here, but you are used to the way things work right?"

"Yes, but the only way we are going to get in is by being creative." Neji replied.

Unfortunately for team Gai they weren't the only team seeking entrance as this night began to fall and eclipse the earlier light a metaphor for the state of the world. This team however weren't as concerned with stealth as much. Tact made no part in their plan as the guards on patrol around the perimeter were dispatched of. Soon the earthbending gang had sprung their trap encasing two of their targets in metal coffins. They returned from their trip triumphant lugging their captives in toe towards the mountains. However this ruckus had alerted the guards and they had sent more men out to seek the perimeter guards and find out what the situation was. As any team leader will know bad luck can destroy the best laid plans and tumble the most skilled. Team Gai were now getting a refresher course in this as the guards had found them sneaking around the gardens as the security was tightened. Lady Luck conspired against team Gai as the very Earth they stood on rose and moved to do battle with the shinobi. Despite Neji's best offerings of peace and trying to establish that they should be allies and were on the same side the guards kept on flinging earth and boulders at them. Neji decided that a strategic withdrawal was needed to reassess the situation as the other team had obviously had more success in their plot. Retreating to the forest outside they laid in wait knowing that they would find out what they wanted to know soon enough. Sure enough after a few minutes they heard a gasp followed by.

"Whoever took Aang and Toph left this"

If you want to see your daughter again, bring500 gold pieces to the arena. It's signed "Xin Fu and The Boulder."

"I can't believe it... I have the Boulder's autograph!"

"Master Yu, I need you to help you get my daughter back. "

"We're going with you."

Team Gai left to track their quarry back to the mountains. First they wanted to get Lee and now they interfered not only with their self imposed mission, but also interfered with their link to their homes. They had made this deeply personal.

A mountain stronghold is usually a good place to hide. It's a very defensible position, any sensible strategist could tell you that, but it can also have honeycombed caves for hiding supplies and troops and launching ambushes out of. Unfortunately this can also be the problem with cave fortresses, especially ones that rely with being in the mountain. The caves can build up a sense of security as they can be your greatest strength, but also the greatest weakness. Enemy attacks from below can terminate morale. They also work just as hiding places just as well for your enemy which is why none of the gloating earthbenders noticed that three completely uninvited people were hanging off the wall hidden in shadows right next to the stands. It would have really infuriated them to know that the other person they wanted was hiding amongst them and that they would just need to earthbend the cage a little bit to get it into position to capture him... not that it would hold him though. An interesting argument had been happening between captor and captee when they had entered. This conversation conveniently ended when the avatars friends and Toph's family entered the arena. The three people watched the events impassively waiting for the right opportunity to enter.

"Toph!" said the man that was obviously Toph's father.

"Here's your money. Now let them go." The blue clad teenager said dropping a bag of gold onto the floor. Master Yu then kicked forward to deliver the bag to Xin Fu who opened it up to check its contents before turning to issue a signal to someone else hidden in the shadows. Soon the chain began moving to lower the right cage towards the arena stopping but a few feet above to open up its bottom and deliver its cargo to the ground. Toph fell the short distance and landed hard on the earth stadium. She gained her bearings quickly and ran to meet up with her father who turned to leave with master Yu whilst he guided her with his hand.

"What about Aang‌?" This time it was the blue clad girl that spoke.

"It's a shame we haven't got that other kid yet, he could turn out to be valuable. Anyway I think the Fire Nation will pay a hefty price for the , get out of my ring." Xin Fu said taking out and unfolding a scroll. After he did this the competitors revealed themselves. A tornado whipped into the ring only to disperse to reveal the fire nation man. The green masked man jumped down from the ceiling to land in his battle position as the Hippo stomped onto the arena crushing a boulder with his hands. The man with the painted face appeared amidst rock and dust to join the group as the final member rose up from below to complete the ensemble leaving the two blue clad siblings outnumbered and disheartened.

"Go. I'll be ok." The boy, no avatar in the cage said waving his companions away.

The two siblings wavered before turning. The girl spoke up.

"Toph, there's too many of them. We need an earthbender. We need you!"

"Should we enter now Neji?" Tenten asked looking at Neji.

"Not now, we should see how this plays out for a while longer. If it looks like the avatar is going to be abandoned we will step in." Neji replied observing the scene below with his Byakuan.

Toph's father had turned by now and replied.

"My daughter is blind. She is blind and tiny and helpless and fragile. She cannot help you."

Toph however took this opportunity to wrench her hand out of her father's grasp.

"Yes, I can" She stated marching back towards the arena whilst her father looked on distraught. Toph marched back onto the stage and quickly stopped her old captors by earthbending a wall blocking their escape as they tried to leave with the Hippo carrying the avatar's cage over his shoulder.

"Let him go. I beat you all before, and I'll do it again." She cried sweeping her arm out in front of her in a challenging gesture.

The earthbenders stopped and turned to glare at her.

"The Boulder takes issue with that comment." The Boulder stated pointing at Toph and glaring at her eager to get his revenge for his stretched nether regions. The Hippo threw the cage across the arena and prepared to attack along with the rest of the benders. The blue clad teenagers moved up to support Toph, but she waved them away.

"Wait... They're mine!" she claimed as her opponents began to rush her. Toph then began her earthbending. First she slammed her foot down and began to raise her arms. As her opponents neared her she stomped again this time sending up an explosion of dust and rock to obscure the battlefield which doubled as an attack as her opponents went flying backwards to slam down and be covered by the debris and dust cloud. Which she calmly walked into so she could meet her opponents head on. Yu and Toph's father looked on anxious as Toph walked in, whereas Neji on the other hand smirked.

"Interesting. She is blind, yet she can see anyway via her techniques. This is an amazing tactical ploy as it robs her opponents of their sight rendering them near useless whereas she keeps her sight. She has changed the odds to her advantage in one move. It will be interesting to see how this plays out... of course this wouldn't work on a Hyuga." Neji stated. "Her parent and teacher on the other hand seem completely oblivious to this."

"They must underestimate her because she is blind." Tenten said. "I wish I had your Byakugan Neji, now I can't see the fight."

As they talked Neji could see Toph encounter her first opponent who managed to send an attack her way though Toph easily dodged and countered with a barrage of earth columns sending him flying out of the ring to smack into the stands and then crash onto a pile of earth and rocks beneath, though this did little to ease the adult's fear. The next opponent was the green masked man who was taken off guard by a pebble to his head. After finding his attacker he leapt up and threw two boulders at Toph who easily snatched the out of the air and sent them crashing behind her before raising columns to smash the Gecko out of the ring and onto his already fallen companion fire nation man. The mole was the next opponent to challenge Toph surfacing and throwing a boulder at her. Unfortunately for him she caught it, span with it and returned it along the same trajectory so that it smashed into him and threw him into the growing pile outside the ring. The male water tribe member continued to smash the avatar's cage with a rock whilst the female tried to pry open the metal doors to no avail until finally a lucky hit managed to score a penetrating blow and the doors snapped open. The avatar jumped out adopting a fighting stance until the male water tribe member pointed out the battle already in progress. At which point the Hippo spun out carrying a large stone disk and he was soon joined by the Boulder who was unceremoniously thrown out of the dust cloud. Toph appeared and took up a central position in the arena over the Earth Kingdom style stone disk embedded in the centre. The Hippo and Boulder taunted her before rushing into attack, the Boulder picking up a boulder on the way in. The Wild Man timed his attack at the same time as he swung down with boulder in hand to deliver a pincer attack. Toph however heard him and countered by rotating the stone disk so that the Wild Man slammed into the Boulder and Hippo sending them crashing onto the arena floor and Toph allowed them no rest by following it up with ore eathbending to send them all spiralling out of the arena to join their already defeated companions. Toph's father Neji noted had now moved on to devouring his nails. Toph's victories and his confidence seemed to be indirectly proportional.

"I never knew. Your daughter's amazing." Yu said obviously shocked.

"Hey they are starting to catch on!" Lee pointed out before directing his attention back to the combatants. Toph cleared the playing field showing the final two earthbenders. Xin Fu and Toph herself. Xin Fu cracked his neck before adopting his stance whilst Toph spat out some saliva and assumed hers. The two earthbenders began to circle each other wearily seeking out each other's weaknesses and openings in their guards. Xin Fu made the opening move by pulling up and firing off a barrage of boulders of varying size. Toph however counted by pulling up a defensive barrier that formed an arrowhead in front of her which worked as a bulwark against the incoming blows. After the barrage had finished Toph slammed her palm forward sending one side flying off at Xin Fu who flipped out the way so it went to crash harmlessly in the stands. Amidst his flip Xin Fu added offense to his evasive manoeuvre by stabbing his palm into the ground and catapulting up more boulders and debris at Toph. Toph sensed the attack and deftly sidestepped the incoming projectiles with off cuts barely missing her face before she returned face on to send another powerful earthbending attack out which crashed into Xin Fu and sent him flying into the stands between her teacher and her father. The avatar and his female companion ran to catch up with Toph as the male companion fainted.

"She's the greatest earthbender I've ever seen!" Yu commented awestruck. The group reunited and began to leave the stadium.

"Neji should we join them now?" Tenten asked.

"No those guards thought we were the enemy and will no doubt have warned their employer about us. If we appear now the avatar will join with them and think of us as an enemy. We'll have to find the avatar before he leaves." Neji replied. "We need to follow the avatar, but remain hidden." Team Gai followed idea so followed the avatar at a distance as night began to fall. Unfortunately the guards at the Bei Fong mansion were doing even wider patrols so team Gai were forced to stay further away than they would have liked. Neji still followed with the Byakugan and watched as the confession happened. He saw the daughter and father have an argument and lip read it so he could tell Lee and Tenten of the progress.

"The avatar has been kicked out. Now's our chance" Neji said before realising that it would be much easier said than done as the avatar and his companions climbed onto their bison and flew away from the mansion.

"Damn that's quick." Neji exclaimed as the bison managed to escape his vision for a split second as the speed at which it could move was underestimated.

"Quick find it." Neji ordered as Lee and Tenten moved to obey and follow in the direction the bison had disappeared in. To their shock however a wave of earth erupted from outside the wall and Toph appeared at the crest before surfing off in the same direction. This type of earthbending surprised team Gai for a second, but no longer as they also gave pursuit.

Toph had arrived a minute before them and had obviously exchanged greetings as the avatar now lay on the floor after falling out of the tree next to him she also clutched her belt as she had liberated it from the blue clad teenager who wore it without doing anything to earn it.

"C'mon let's go quickly." The avatar said leaping onto his six legged bison. Team Gai chose this moment to step forward. Lee and Tenten were looking at the bison and wondering about it. How could it fly? Why did a bison have six legs? Did it have chakra? Neji could answer that final question, but he was too busy in negotiation with the avatar's group.

"Hello I am the leader of team Gai I would like to talk with you avatar..." Neji started with, however before he could carry on he was interrupted by Toph.

"Quick Aang we need to flee, the guards said they tried to break in, they probably want revenge just like Xin Fu and the rest of those idiots."

"If we wanted revenge we would have attacked you by now." Neji countered, but it was to no avail. The avatar's group was clearly shaken and their response to the fight or flight syndrome was flight, literally in fact.

"Yip yip" Aang cried sending his bison skyward.

"We'll have to track them." Neji stated watching them rise and fly into the distance. We need to ally ourselves with him.

"Yes Neji!" was the response as team Gai prepared to track the avatar. They jumped up into the trees to quickly follow the bison's trail.


	4. Teamwork

Sorry my life got a bit complicated. I'm trying to get into a schedule and when I do updates will come quicker.

Again I own nothing in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender toMichael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

* * *

Tracking is an interesting job. It is both easier and harder to track than be tracked as when tracking you only have to focus on what the target is doing whereas they on the other hand have to focus on you and where to go next. The downside of this is that you are always one step behind as you continually have to react to their movements as they are dictating the flow of the chase. As such chasing is hardly ever a simple event and it was not helped in this instance as not only one group was chasing the same target, but two. Interestingly enough both groups consisted of teams of three who had astounding similarities between them although at this point both were completely oblivious to this. Of course one group were not by themselves, the actual combatants numbed more, but the true team consisted of three individuals who lead the convoy of tanks on a destructive rampage towards their target.

The other team preferred a more eco-friendly approach to the chase, taking the trees. Not only was this a great form of exercise and stamina training it also kept you awake and was much harder to spot.

Tree hopping was a great way to travel. It was stealthy, quick and helped train stamina and reflexes. It was always a thrill for a young genin to first try it as the exhilarating trip was unforgettable. Watching the trees turn into blurs as you hopped past was entertaining as was slowing down and taking in the scenery before continuing. Even some of the older ninja relished the chance to travel through the trees some doing it for fun or sport. The great thing about it was you never stopped being able to do it. Much like a civilian would learn to ride a bike a shinobi would learn to tree jump and it would be something that would stay with them for life as an invaluable skill for work or pleasure and, just like a bicycle, you could improve at it and perfect it into an art form. Of course most tracking jobs involved traps left behind by the enemy and spotting them in the thick undergrowth could be a challenge. Which is why team Gai found trailing in this world ridiculously easy.

"I know flying increases their speed, but it just screams 'here I am feel free to shoot me down'!" Tenten cried looking upwards at the physics defying bison.

"I don't know who's worse here." Neji responded elegantly flipping from one branch to another leaving, but a few leaves fluttering or a shaking branch to tell of his presence. "The avatar on his bison which signifies him and makes him a clear target or the other group who started tailing recently. They are both painfully obvious."

"At least the Avatar can be slightly stealthy and with his powers he can defend in the air it should be his specialty after all." Lee said grabbing a branch and swinging around it to flip to a higher branch in the adjacent tree. "The bison does not make nearly as much noise as the metal constructions the other group has and flying would be a most youthful method of transportation!"

"That maybe so" Neji replied. "But that other group has no excuse. Those metal constructs create far too much noise and are tearing through trees and spitting out smoke. They have to be the most obvious trackers ever."

"What's the plan?" Tenten asked.

"We should investigate these new players as any unknown quantities could prove lethal given the right circumstances." Neji replied changing course.

"Come on we need to set an ambush." Neji yelled heading off towards the metal vehicles.

***

The armoured column rumbled on. They were making good time on the avatar, but still Azula was impatient.

"Why haven't we caught up yet?" she commanded from her throne towards the back of the command deck. Even in the hard metal environment of the tank the princess still had her creature comforts softening the area with cushions and felts and padding to make the princess comfortable.

"We're sorry princess, but the avatar can fly directly whereas we sometimes have to make slight deviations from our path." The chief engineer spoke up. After seeing the stormy look on Azula's face he quickly added "But don't worry your highness as time passes the avatar and his bison will tire and slow down because of fatigue. Then we will easily be able to catch up to him."

"For your sake that better be soon." Azula commented idly reclining back in her throne and brushing back one of the bangs hanging down from her top knot. For what it's worth this comment could be considered an empty threat, a statement said with no real backing. However as this was the princess of the Fire Nation saying it, even lightly, it was taken deadly seriously.

The convoy continued on its journey, now in stony silence with not even the ever energetic Ty Lee interjecting an optimistic comment. Unfortunately for the Fire Nation inhabitants the Land of Fire's shinobi team had taken an interest in them and unknown to them lay in wait. The first clue to something being wrong was when there was a slight shudder and the tank lurched to the left before crashing through several trees and rolling to a stop.

"P.. Princess Azula ma'am" a timed voice spoke up. "I'm afraid that something has taken out our wheels. The chassis is under heavy strain and we are going to have to stop for repairs."

"Ahh" screamed Azula slamming her fist down onto the armrest of her throne. In her rage she used her firebending and the armrest started melting into molten slag.

"Ugh now we have to walk." Muttered Mai from her slouching position.

"It could be fun!" bubbled Ty Lee "Come on let's go exploring maybe we can find some interesting places around here."

"I doubt it" Mai rebutted. "The Earth Kingdom is so boring."

"It might not be a bad idea to carry on though." Azula said under her breath. "Right you get this tank up and running whilst me, Mai and Ty Lee will explore ahead. You must catch up to us as soon as possible as you surely don't expect your princess to walk."

"Yes ma'am" the engineers cried hurrying to their workstations. Azula and her cohorts left the tank convoy in a bustle of activity with engineers dashing round holding schematics and hammers trying to quickly get the convoy operational again.

"C'mon girls" Azula said. "You give me too little credit." She announced walking to one of the derailed tanks. She reached up and smashed her palm into the door making it slide down onto the ground. When the dented metal fully hit the floor Azula walked in and soon rode out on a lizard.

"Saddle up girls. This looks like a trap and I fully intend to meet the idiots brave enough to try to spring a trap on me!" She cried and not waiting for her friends she rode off along the dirt path.

Harsh sunlight poured down onto the ground, covering the hard dirt path. Clouds of dust rose from the steps of the Mongoose Dragon partially obscuring the three figures riding them. They had been following the trail as Azula had spotted a shadow moving through the trees at the scene of the crash and two more shadows appeared from time to time, enticing the three girls and leading them further down the path. The trees swayed in the breeze offering cover to those who would seek refuge in them and the shadows they cast. Small tufts of grass poked themselves out around the path and wild flowers and weeds overtook any space left. Long vines hung from trees and leaves fluttered in the gentle caress of the wind. A small flash of light erupted from one of the shadows and ended with a kunai quivering in the ground before the Mongoose Dragons, startling them, but the three Fire Nation girls reigned in their mounts with practised ease.

"Who goes there?!" Azula questioned. "Who dare attacks the fire princess?" she addressed the shadows. Her questions were awarded with a figure slinking their way through the trees to jump down and land in front of the path.

"I'm talking to royalty... I'm honoured." He said his long brown hair blowing lightly around him. Azula was stunned. She must have looked right at him several times and never seen him, still she had to keep her face up in front of other people so the only emotion that crossed her mildly pretty features was one of annoyance.

"State your name stranger. You must know I am the fire bending prodigy." She coldly stated looking down from her dragon. She glanced at Mai and Ty Lee. Mai's face hadn't changed, no surprise there, but Ty Lee was looking at his white robe clad form like Zuko would look at someone offering his honour. That thought Azula found mildly amusing, but turned her attention back to the stranger before her.

"Yes I've heard of you." He said motioning with his hands. "But what I would like to know is why you are chasing the avatar."

"Ohhh your cute!" Ty Lee giggled causing the stranger to look startled for a second before a grimace briefly covered his features.

"I've had enough of your bravado! I'll teach you to mock me!" Azula almost screeched finally tired of the farce her interrogation seemed to have devolved into. She struck out with her right hand causing blue flames to appear and engulf the stranger or at least she thought they did.

"You are impatient aren't you?" The stranger said again appearing unscathed from the flames. "Fine my name is Neji"

"You must be blind not to realise who you're really talking to" Mai muttered idly flicking her own throwing knife up and down in the air.

"Yes you stupid blind... peasant." Azula spoke. "Now I demand you tell me where you come from and if you are an enemy you will surrender or you will die."

Neji smirked at this.

"I come" he said "from the Land of Fire."

"Land of Fire... is that slang for the Fire Nation?" Ty Lee questioned looking towards Azula and Mai.

"Not that I've heard of." Came her reply from Mai.

"Regardless what is your purpose, setting a trap for me is punishable by death, but I'm curious why are you tracking the avatar?" Azula commanded.

"I need to ask a favour of him." Came the reply. "Why are you after him."

"Because he is a threat to our great nation." Came Azula's response. "And you appear to be a traitor so I'm going to have to kill you!" Azula cried readying her bending which caused Mai and Ty Lee to adopt battle stances whilst mounted.

"If you fight well enough we'll just capture you ok!" Ty Lee chipped in.

"Fighting me would be unwise." Neji said.

"Oh and why's that." Azula responded. "I'm a genius firebender who can make blue flames. Ty Lee has her acrobatic style that is unbeatable and Mai is an expert weapon user. We have you out numbered and out manoeuvred."

"I wouldn't say that." Neji replied.

"Oh and why is that" Azula condescendingly replied.

"Because you naively assumed I was alone.

"So?"

"I'm not" Neji said motioning with his hands again.

"I wish to fight the genius to prove that with hard effort I can beat a natural genius!" said a Green clad teenager leaning against a tree.

"Neji I wish to fight this Azula genius now."

"If you wish Lee I'll take the Ty Lee girl."

"So what about Mai?" Azula said still confident that she had the upper hand. "She'll pincushion you before we even have to bother with you."

"Tenten?" Neji asked.

"A weapon master huh?" A new voice spoke up, this time it was a female. "I think I can match that." Azula and her friends looked up to see a girl with her brown hair tied up in two buns squatting on a tree branch on the opposite side of the path to Lee.

"Three on three seems fair" Neji commented. "Our teams seem to match quite well don't you think?"

"Ugh" Azula said forward flipping off her Dragon. She extended one leg out and ignited a fire stream after it to form a wheel of fire before she came spinning down in an axe kick. Neji quickly leapt backwards to avoid the attack as the fire speed up her attack as well as providing more power to it. Before Azula could try to attack again Lee jumped forwards a launched a spin kick at her head forcing her to duck under his leg. Neji on the other hand advanced on Ty Lee leaping up and throwing a couple of shuriken throwing stars at her which were in turn deflected by Mai's kunai. Mai sent more throwing knives arcing towards Neji in aid of her friend, but senbon needles impacted on them in the air throwing them off course. Tenten flipped off her branch whilst taking more senbon needles out and flinging them at Mai causing her to take drop off her dragon and slide round so the projectiles whizzed harmlessly over her head to embed themselves in the tree situated behind Mai.

"Alright I will defeat you to show that with hard effort I can beat a natural genius!" Lee exclaimed feinting a right roundhouse kick only to send a left punch lashing round to target Azula's face. Azula ducked in retaliation and did a back flip again igniting the area around her to make a circle of fire as she flipped. Lee leapt back onto his hands and then onto his feet to avoid the blow before leaping up onto a nearby tree and pushing off it to gain momentum causing the area where he stood to splinter and shatter as he took off making it rain bark down onto the soft grass and mud below.

"Leaf Rising Gale!" Lee yelled sending all his velocity into one kick catching Azula square in the chest sending her flying back to crash into a shadowed tree. Lee sprinted after her flying body and as he disappeared amongst the trees blasts of blue fire erupted from out of the forest illuminating his silhouette before he disappeared again.

"I hope Lee will be alright... he can get carried away." Neji mused.

"You don't have time to worry about him cutie!" Ty Lee cooed launching a barrage of strikes towards Neji's chakra points. Neji however recognised the style and easier dodged and weaved his way out of the landslide of attacks.

"What?! How are you predicting my moves?" Ty Lee asked as Neji's hand brushed past the side of her head as she hastily pulled away to the side.

"Because I know your fighting style!" Neji replied. Dropping down to deliver a sweeping kick to Ty Lee's legs brushing them aside as she tried to jump over the attack too late. Neji then proceeded to aim and deliver a strike to her stomach with his right hand.

"Eight trigrams empty palm!" Neji yelled pulling off the attack at close range to deliver maximum devastation.

Ty Lee yelled in pain as the attack travelled straight through her blasting her into the dirt road causing dust and debris to fly up from the powerful strike. As the dust settled Ty Lee lay writhing in agony gasping and forcing out choked coughs.

"W...what power!" She hacked out rolling over and getting to her knees. "Now I defiantly want to keep you!"

"It's a shame I already have problems with being caged then." Neji replied readying a stance.

"Well like it or not I will cage you." Ty Lee replied oblivious to the circumstances sending more of her attacks towards Neji.

"You just don't get it do you? I can read your every attack! Since you're persistent Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms!" Neji yelled spinning and weaving delivering blows to Ty Lees chakra points. Since Ty Lee fights with the same objectives in mind she managed to divert some of the attacks, but even with her efforts she could only minimize the damage dealt at best and still took the brunt of the attack.

"Ty Lee!" Mai yelled glancing at her friend before she had to duck out the way of a kunai and roll to avoid the senbon follow up attack.

"I don't have time for this!" She exclaimed flinging her own kunai in retaliation only to have then sniped out of the sky by Tenten's return blows. Tenten landed o a branch and reached behind her pulling out a ring with four blades lined up in a puff of smoke. Calmly holding it in front of her she swung the blades round to form a giant shuriken.

"Demon wind shuriken windmill of shadow." Tenten cried leaping off her branch to deliver her attack with extra force. The shuriken flew straight down towards Mai causing her to fling herself hastily to the side. The demon wind shuriken impacted with a loud thud into the ground where Mai soon grabbed it and with a bit of effort pulled it out. With one sweeping motion Mai drew and cast the shuriken back at Tenten who lazily caught the shuriken out of the sky along with the three kunai Mai sent up in its wake for insurance spinning them around her fingers.

"Is that the best you can do?" Tenten questioned hopping down onto the ground. Mai threw more kunai at Tenten as Ty Lee got back up and started running forward albeit stumbling slightly towards Tenten.

"Our teamwork is impressive, we'll take you down together!" They cried Ty Lee cart wheeling round to deliver two kicks with the back of her heels which Neji caught in his palms appearing in front of Tenten in a split second.

"You're not the only team!" He said throwing her back before leaping into a tree to avoid a barrage of shuriken stars. Ty Lee leapt forward again only to get caught on Tenten's staff and sent flying towards the ground where Mai rushed to catch her.

"I'll get you, you stupid commoner!" Came from the trees as Lee darted out of them. Azula breathed out to ready herself before stepping forward and punching with both hands letting out a stream of fire incinerating the trees around her on its destructive path to Rock Lee causing the other four combatants to scatter.. Lee jumped up at the last second and appeared squatting in mid air over the gout of flame.

"You can't escape!" Azula yelled twisting her hands round and opening her fists. This time the fire spread out into the column and even the air where Lee had taken refuge wasn't safe anymore. Although Lee had already vacated the spot and was rushing towards Azula bouncing off trees and appearing only as a blur with destroyed bark marking his presence. Lee ended up appearing behind Azula and delivered a flying, spinning round kick to the back of her head causing her to stumble forward and the great wall of blue flames was extinguished. Lee looked slightly worse for wear as slight burn marks could be seen on his jacket and his hair was slightly ruffled. Azula however looked a bit worse for wear as she stumbled to her feet again back on the dirt road after Lee's kick.

"Ugh!" she screamed sending off another column of fire around her which her teammates skilfully avoided knowing it was coming. The ninja jumped back to clear the distance and a slight rumbling could be heard in the distance. Tenten and Mai threw more weapons at the opposing groups as Lee rushed to Azula and attempted to leg sweep her. Ty Lee leapt and grabbed onto Neji's shoulders before swinging around them to deliver blows to the back of Neji's legs making her stumble and fall down. Ty Lee capitalized her chance with a quick blow to the head before Neji could counter and then she back flipped over three kunai that would have struck her in the back of her head had she not moved. Time seemed to move in slow motion as the kunai swept under Ty Lee's body in mid air, passing under her arcing back before time resumed its normal course and the kunai embed themselves deep in a tree. Mai took this as an opportunity to close the distance between herself and Tenten and used her kunai at close range causing a few glancing blows in the sudden rush. The rumbling was louder know and the three groups stopped to look as the first tank came crashing down the path towards them.

"Princess Azula!" A fire nation captain cried from the top of the tank. "We'll help you!"

"Hmph time to leave." Neji stated jumping up into a tree. "Don't think you've won we'll meet again!" he cried leaving to seek shelter in the shadowy depths of the forest with Tenten soon following him..

"We know when we must retreat" Lee said. "The odds are now against us so we must part ways here, you have been a most youthful opponent." And having said this Lee followed Neji and Tenten into the shadows.

"You idiots!" Azula cried at the tank. "The fight interrupted by my own ignorant underlings." She ranted before storming back into the tank and ordering the crews to hurry up the search for the avatar. Not to mention that she wanted information about the three mysterious players in this massive real time game of chess.

***

In a clearing only a few miles down the road the three ninja had gathered to reassess their plans.

"Neji what will we do?" Tenten asked. "We obviously do not share the same allegiances despite us both coming from a country of fire."

"Fire Nation and Land of Fire..." Neji said scratching out diagrams on the earth. "We will follow them" He said looking up. "We will adopt the third position in this chase and follow them so we can keep an eye on not only the avatar, but these Fire Nation warriors."

"A good plan Neji." Lee said.

"Yes so we should head out as soon as we can to follow through with the plan. This chase will reach a climax soon and we need to be there when it happens."

"Let's go then." Tenten said leaping into the tree tops. Neji and Lee followed speeding along following the path of the Fire Nation tanks.

***

The sun started to rise over the distant mountains bathing the land in shadow. Four groups however were up and moving in a desperate chase situation. Three groups chasing the fourth a lone rider and two trios. Azula and her two cohorts had split up from the tank convoy enabling them to traverse ground quicker with their nimbler mounts they were now also less obvious to spot. Even stealthier however was the other trio who never stayed in the same place long enough for anyone to get more than a glimpse of them as the continued their fast paced trip through the trees. The last member of the chasers rode alone which helped him travel unnoticed, but would count against him in a combat situation.

Zuko rode alone, he had split up from his uncle Iroh a while back as he had been holding him back with his conscientious objector views regarding Azula. A rustle caught his attention to the left of his peripheral vision. Wasting no time Zuko sent a blast arcing out towards it only for it to explode into the tree to reveal nothing. The next thing Zuko knew was several wires spreading out from a tree to his right creating a spider web around him and blocking off his movement. A girl appeared from the tree clothed in white and red robes.

"So you're the other pursuer." She stated.

"Who the hell are you!?" Zuko demanded not put off by the thin steel wires surrounding him.

"I would not be asking questions if I was in your position." A different voice this time, deeper , stronger, to the right. Zuko's head whipped round to see a green clothed individual walk out onto the path from the trees.

"Why are you chasing the avatar? From your clothes I'd guess you're Fire Nation, but you're on a parallel path to your precious princess." The girl said.

"I am prince Zuko heir to the throne. I am chasing the avatar to regain my honour." Zuko claimed. "Know tell me who you are."

"We are shinobi... from the Land of Fire." The girl said. "And if you're after the avatar to capture him that makes us enemies, but I must wonder why you aren't with your sister. Did you fall out?"

"Ugh... If you must know I was banished." Zuko ground out.

"That explains it then. It all comes down to honour." A new voice spoke this time coming from behind. Zuko turned to see a white robed individual with the longest hair Zuko had ever seen... on a guy.

A great crashing sound could be heard emanating from up ahead.

"Shit we need the avatar." The latest arrival cursed and to Zuko's amazement veins began to stand out around his eyes.

"We'll have to deal with you later. Lee! Tenten! We need to go now! Azula's catching up because of the avatar's bison leaving a trail." The robed man said leaping over Zuko and then dashin off at a speed not even a mongoose dragon could emulate.

"Wait my eternal rival!" Came the response from Lee as he followed moving even quicker than the first if that was even possible.

"Ugh I wish those two would wait for me..." The girl, Tenten complained easily pulling back her wire like a master fisherman would pull in his line and she too departed.

***

Neji landed gracefully at what looked like a battlefield. He observed the fur laying peacefully on the ground blowing amiably in the wind contrasted against the wrecked trees that scattered bark and logs onto the ground.

"They've split up" he said as Tenten glided down to land next to Neji.

"What should we do Neji? Who's split up and where have they gone?"

"I'm not sure, but what I can tell is that the avatar has gone that way and he has been followed by one of those three girls, probably Azula their leader." Neji said pointing towards the trail of fur.

"Then the destroyed trees?" Lee asked.

"The bison has gone that way, only it could cause that level of destruction at that height." Neji said.

"Lee, Tenten pursue the bison and help the other members of 'Team Avatar' I'll handle the avatar and his pursuer."

"Got it Neji" came two responses as Lee and Tenten jumped onto and over the wreckage in pursuit.

"And so we reach end game..." Neji said dashing off after the avatar.

A rider approached the clearing after team Gai's disappearance.

"So that's the avatars location."

***

A blast of wind cut through the clearing hurling Ty Lee and Mai into the freezing cold waters of the river.

"Thanks Appa. I don't know what we'd do without you." Sokka said gratefully receiving a giant lick in return. Meanwhile in the river Ty Lee and Mai were dragging themselves out of the river to flop down on the bank.

"Was it just me, or was that guy kinda cute" Ty Lee said squeezing water out of her braid whilst turning to face Mai.

"You fancy every half decent boy we might." Came Mai's response.

"Maybe..." Ty Lee replied putting her hand under her chin in a thoughtful pose. "Still we should go back to face them again, Azula won't be pleased if we don't."

"Ugh fine..." Mai said slowly rising to her feet to follow the ever energetic Ty Lee back towards the Avatar's two friends.

"Hi!" Ty Lee announced cheerfully to them. "You're not getting rid of us that easily."

"Oh crud! Not again, we can't beat them!" Katara moaned as Mai trapped Appa within the trees and her throwing weapons.

"We're doomed!" Sokka wailed.

"Don't be so climatic." Ty Lee chided reaching forward to tap Katara's chakra points to take away her bending again. Whilst she did this Mai readied and threw several kunai at Sokka to incapacitate him. They never hit their target. Several kunai came raining down repelling all of Mai's kunai and sending them spinning away.

"What!?" Mai questioned. "Wait is it her again?"

As Ty Lee was about to hit Katara's first chakra point and disable her a blur impacted onto her arm in a kick forcing her attack off target. The blur then proceeded to flip over Ty Lee's head to land standing behind her. The next thing Ty Lee knew was a heel coming towards the side of her face in a backwards free style round kick. The kick landed square in her jaw sending her flying into Mai and casting them back into the river.

"YOU!" four people yelled at once as Katara, Sokka, Mai and Ty Lee all stared in shock at the two figures standing in front of them. The male clothed in all green and the female dropping down from the trees.

"Did you miss us?" Tenten questioned. "We never did get to finish our fight."

"Come Tenten we must finish this quickly so we can hurry to Neji's aid!" Lee yelled dashing towards the river.

"Ugh Lee wait!" Tenten let out in an exasperated sigh. She turned to face Katara and Sokka. "Sorry he's always like this... we'll explain later." She said to Sokka and Katara's questioning looks.

To Sokka and Katara's shock when Lee got to the river he didn't hit the water and go flying through, but he started going over it.

"What on earth are they?" Katara asked her brother.

"I don't know..." Sokka replied. "But they seem to be our allies for the moment."

Tenten stood on the water whilst Mai stood in the river with water washing around her ankles, the current making it hard for her to stand.

"You again huh?" Mai asked. "You were enough of a pain last time, but now you're just getting in the way."

"Maybe, but I think that this time I should just nip this fight in the bud since we honestly have no time to waste and you're already weakened."

"You think you can?" Mai questioned flinging her throwing weapons out.

"I know I can because I always hit my target!" Tenten announced reaching behind her to pull out two small scrolls.

"No need to go full out just yet." Tenten muttered whilst placing her scrolls on top of the water which miraculously stayed dry.

"Twin Rising Dragons" She yelled flying upwards as her two scrolls expanded upwards in two trails of smoke that looked like dragons, this sent her flying high above Mai's attacks and Mai was forced to quickly reassess her trajectory.

"You won't escape me!" She said throwing weapons up and Tenten. Unfortunately for Mai she was massively outgunned as Tenten produced several hundred weapons from her scrolls flinging her steel avalanche at Mai bombarding her with a rain of weapons. Mai brought her arms up to protect her face, but still received many cuts which started leaking blood into the river, which wasn't helped by the fact that the impact of the weapons made her lose her balance and she stumbled over and fell backwards into the river.

"MAI!" Ty Lee yelled appearing seemingly from nowhere. She picked up Mai and carried her to the shore. Water was being blasted up from down the river as Lee sprinted towards Ty Lee.

A scream of what sounded vaguely like 'Youth' was heard as Lee caught up with Ty Lee disappearing behind her to back kick her over the river. Lee then dashed around her to deliver a kick from a crouch to launch Ty Lee into the air. Lee landed onto all fours before launching himself up after Ty Lee.

"Shadow of the Dancing Leaf!" Lee cried from under Ty Lee.

"Lee you're not going to use that are you?" Tenten questioned, slightly panicky Sokka and Katara noticed.

"Do not worry youthful Tenten and Ty Lee I will not perform that technique in this battle!" Lee replied. Instead he grabbed Ty Lee's arms and legs with his and began to spin round in the air before he let go allowing her to fly down to land in a cloud of earth next to Mai. Lee then proceeded to land next to Tenten.

"You were a most youthful opponent, but I am afraid that I could not lose." He said whilst Tenten made her way back to shore.

"Hi" she said looking at Katara and Sokka. "Where's the other one?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Katara asked trying desperately to get into some semblance of a defensive stance.

"You know" Lee said walking towards the group. "When we last saw you there was that other girl... did she go with the avatar somehow?"

"She can't have Lee we didn't see any more tracks and the bison is over there." Tenten pointed out.

"She has... temporarily left our group." Sokka said looking down.

"Ah" Tenten acknowledged. "Anyway our leader sent us here to find and help you."

"Why... why are you helping us. Toph said you broke in and were against us." Katara countered. To which Tenten face palmed.

"Ah yes well we were going to try to warn you about Xin Fu and those other Earth Rumble people, but we kinda failed." She said scratching the b ack of her head and laughing lightly.

"Anyway" Lee said. "We now need to head back to help the avatar. Our leader went after him to help him with Azula."

"But how do we know you're trustworthy?" Sokka questioned.

"There's no time" Tenten said.

"Bu..."

"Look I know you're curious, but we'll explain later when both our groups and fully gathered."

"Fine temporally truce then" Katara said. "C'mon let's get going. Climb onto Appa everyone!"

"Katara you can't just trust them like that... they're probably with the Fire Nation or something!"

"Sokka shut up!" Katara yelled at her brother. "Finding and helping Aang takes precedence right now."

"Fine, but don't blame me if we die mid-flight." Sokka said as he gave up and started walking towards Appa. Lee was already on having easily vaulted up whilst Tenten climbed up with Katara.

"Yip yip" Katara said taking the reins.

***

The wind blew through the abandoned desert town ruffling the avatar's clothes as he stood determined facing the entryway to the town where Azula mounted on her mongoose dragon approached.

"Alright, you've caught up with me. Now who are you and what do you want‌?" Aang asked.

"You mean you haven't guessed? ‌ You don't see the family resemblance? ‌Here's a hint.I must find the Avatar to restore my honour." Azula replied imitating Zuko's voice whilst sweeping her hair to the side with her hand to cover one eye. The avatar's response was subpar as he just stared blankly back at Azula.

"It's okay. You can laugh. It's funny." Azula said.

"So what now‌" Aang asked.

"Now… Now it's over. You're tired and you have no place to go. You can run, but I'll catch you." Azula replied.

"I'm not running." Aang replied getting ready for battle.

Aang and Azula faced each other down along the long road leading through the ghost town.

"Do you really want to fight me?" Azula asked.

"Yes!" Zuko yelled charging from an ally way to land in-between Azula and Aang. He dismounted his ostrich horse and threw away his straw hat. "I really do."

"Zuko!" Aang yelled in return.

"I was wondering when you'd show up Zuzu." Azula said.

"Zuzu" The avatar chuckled.

"I met some very interesting people on my way here Azula. They sounded like they had a bone to pick with you." Zuko claimed.

"Ah too bad. When they turn up I'll have the avatar in captivity so I won't be in the mood to chat." Azula replied.

"Back off Azula he's mine!" Zuko yelled as the three got into fighting stances point one arm at the avatar and Azula respectively.

"I'm not going anywhere." Azula replied as the three started staring each other down, trying to psyche each other out. They stood still sizing each other up, trying to decide whether to strike first or bide their time. To strike first could gain an advantage, but should it fail the other two could easily strike back. Eventually it was Azula who tired of the wait first so he shot out a blast of blue fire at Zuko who returned in kind with a wall of his fire. The flame wall absorbed most of the impact, but Zuko was still thrown to the ground by the attack. Aang jumped up, using his airbending to try and gain the upper ground in the air, but Azula shot him out of the sky with a well-aimed fire wave. As Aang fell he rotated his staff round like a helicopter to keep airborne longer as well as to clear his landing zone. Whilst he was doing this Azula had blasted her way up a nearby building with her firebending and once at the top she leapt off igniting like a comet to come crashing down at the avatar. Aang jumped backwards and spun his staff around in front of him to block the fire balls sent his way by both Fire Nation royalties. The blasts eventually knocked him over and Azula grinned as she sent out a finishing blow. Aang grimaced as his end approached. He knew that even though it was Azula she wouldn't kill him, but bring him back as a trophy.

"Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin!" echoed out around the buildings as a forth combatant entered the fight. The wall of protective blue chakra whipped around the newcomer and Aang as the fire lapped around the defensive shell.

"Sorry, but I don't feel like chatting either." The new man said standing up.

"You... why did you protect me? I thought you wanted to kill me." Aang asked as Azula's expression flickered between shock and disgust.

"I never wanted to kill you in the first place avatar Aang." Neji replied. "Me and my friends wish to speak with you. My name is Neji, but introductions will have to wait." Neji looked up at Azula.

"Why are you here peasant?!" Azula demanded of Neji.

"So you had met before." Zuko said. "But it doesn't change the fact that I'm going to get the avatar!" Whilst the three had been trading words Aang had gotten up and ran into one of the nearby buildings.

"You can't escape avatar!" Azula cried running after him as Zuko and Neji clashed in a fierce melee behind her. Azula ran up the old, crumbling stone steps to follow the avatar only to almost fall down as when she reached the avatars location the floor was destroyed. Azula's arms flailed as she tried to regains her balance as the avatar sat on an air scooter on the opposite side of the room waving at her. Azula managed to regain her balance and looked up triumphant as to her and Aang's surprise Zuko came dashing in. However he didn't possess Azula's luck so he did plummet down the destroyed floor. Neji was the last to run in. He slipped in bit upon entry and Azula quickly pushed him down.

"How the idiots have fallen." She said before noticing the avatar's shocked face.

"What? I can be funny to." She said before she looked down to see Neji standing sideways on the wall.

"You're beginning to get almost annoying." He said climbing back up onto the ledge.

"I knew it!" Azula screeched. "You have to be some kind of airbender. The Fire Nation scribes who said that only the avatar was left got it wrong. Not that I'm surprised by their stupidity."

"I'm not an airbender" Neji said. "Why don't you Fire Nation people realise this?"

"You can't fool me airbender!" Azula cried launching a barrage of attacks at both supposed airbenders. Neji merely jumped down to land gracefully at the bottom of the building as Aang dissipated his air scooter a bit to fall under the trajectory of the attacks. He then leapt off the air with his air scooter completely disappearing to land on the ledge next to Azula where he proceeded to knock her off. Azula managed to land gracefully next to Neji who she then tried to freestyle round kick. Neji ducked under it before dealing an open palmed attack to Azula's chest sending her flying back into a wall. Azula recovered quickly flinging herself back into the fray and firing off more fireballs.

"Eight Trigrams Empty Palm!" Neji yelled sending his own projectile attack off which cancelled out Azula's forcing her to duck as it blasted a hole in the wall behind her making the wall even more crumbled as sizeable pieces of stone and masonry began to fall down. Aang fled down the steps to arrive back in the street only for a fire blast to knock Zuko flying out of the side of the building. Azula followed soon after with a fiery aura dissipating from around her. A blast of air rocketed past Azula to announce Neji's appearance. As he too climbed out of the rubble. Azula wasted no time in re-initiating her attack on the avatar sending more fire projectiles out towards him causing Aang to jump into an alleyway and then proceed to jump up between the two buildings. Azula kept up the pressure and when the avatar had almost reached the top she sent out a blade of fire to slice the corner off making the avatar stumble and fall although he did managed to grab onto the roof of the building. He was not s lucky the next time as Azula's attack took out more of the building causing the avatar to fall in as the roof collapsed under the strain with rock and timber falling inwards alongside the avatar. Neji rushed to help, but was kept at bay as Azula ignited a fire wall to separate them.

"Damn!" Neji cursed before looking up to see a faint object coming their way... flying to be precise.

"Looks like the cavalry has arrived."

Aang landed hard on the floor in the now ruined building as rubble fell around him. A support beam landed on top of his hand pinning him in place. Azula entered triumphant as she readied her blow to take out the avatar. At the last moment before the strike could be fired a whip made of water coiled itself around Azula's wrist pulling her way.

"Today just isn't my day." Azula muttered landing on the floor as the water whip cracked again this time splitting the beam entombing the avatar.

"Katara!" Aang yelled joyfully as his face went from shock to excitement. Azula fired off blasts at Katara forcing her to retreat with Azula in pursuit and Aang following close behind her. The chase was short lived as Sokka ambushed Azula from an alleyway swinging his club, but hitting only the air. Azula however was forced to stop her pursuit and reassess her situation as Aang, Sokka and Katara formed an arc around her and began to push her back. Azula initiated a fighting retreating sending out blasts of fire and defending with occasional walls of fire. The avatar and his friends responded with their own attacks and guards with a climax being reached as Azula charged Aang breaking the encirclement as Aang jumped out of the way. Azula began to back out of the alleyway now realising that his was a fight she could not hope to win as she was outnumbered and outgunned. As she retreated she was slammed to the ground by a blast of earth.

"I thought you could use a little help." Toph said appearing on the battlefield.

"Thanks!" Katara exclaimed with a full smile on her face.

"It looks like the tables have turned." Neji said as Azula stumbled to her feet only to look down the other way of the main road to see the fully assembled team Gai standing there.

"I take it Mai and Ty Lee lost then." She shouted before turning and entered a rout pulling back from the road into an alleyway.

"Crud not those guys again!" Toph yelled getting ready to attack team Gai.

"We'll explain later!" Aang and Katara said looking at each other shocked as the spoke simultaneously. "For now those guys are on our side."

Aang and Katara lead the charge quickly followed by team Gai.

"Hey I don't trust them either." Sokka said shrugging his shoulders. "But we can get them later."

The battle then entered the alleyway with walls of fire appearing increasingly regularly as less offensive fire based moves were used. As Azula fled out the end she bounced back from someone's belly and as she backed away she realised that it was Iroh's with Zuko standing behind him. She backed away again this time with nine people bearing down on her. She was forced to back away into a ruined corner of a burnt out building.

"Well, look at this. Enemies and traitors all working together. I'm done." Azula said raising her hands in the universal gesture of surrender. "I know when I'm beaten. You got me. A princess surrenders with honour."

Lady luck however had other plans for the combatants as Iroh looked down the line to see Toph standing with the Avatar's group. Azula noticed this and took the opportunity to fire off a blast of blue flames at Iroh hitting him square in the chest knocking him back to the ground. Zuko screamed as he sent off his own attack at Azula with Aang, Katara and Toph also launching their own bending attacks. Neji sent in his own blast of air mixed with chakra whilst Sokka threw his boomerang. Lee and Tenten stayed their attacks knowing that it was pointless to try as without bending or some other elemental power their attacks wouldn't hit in the maelstrom of elements. Azula raised a blue shield of fire to block and the resulting impact shook the town with a terrible explosion and flaming debris rained down from the sky. As the smoke cleared it was revealed the Azula had somehow managed to flee. Zuko ran to his uncle and kneeled down at his side. The members of team avatar approached only for Zuko to turn and yell.

"Get away from us!"

Toph's eyes watered as Katara extended her and.

"Zuko I can help!" Katara said.

Zuko however retaliated with a wave of fire crying.

"Leave!"

"C'mon lets go." Neji said approaching the avatar. "He doesn't want our help so we should leave. Unless we want to make relationships worse we should retreat for now."

"Fine" Aang said hanging his head and leading the group of seven over to Appa. They flew away leaving the smoking ghost town behind them.

"We'll set up camp and rest for the night, you've helped us and we owe you that much." Aang said. "But in the morning we're going to need a full explanation."

"Are you mad Aang! They'll attack us in our sleep!" Sokka cried.

"Sokka if they wanted us dead they would have killed or captured us earlier when they had the chance. After all the help they've given us we owe them a bit of trust." Aang steered his bison towards a nearby mountain where they set up camp.

"Finally" Sokka said flopping down. "I get to sleep."

* * *

Bonus - (This is not really important.)

"Welcome to question corner! I am your youthful host Rock Lee!"

"And I'm Tenten this is going to appear sporadically as a bonus much like in the anime of Naruto."

"The question today is 'if ninjas are supposed to show no emotions and effectively have no emotions how come most of them preach about how friendship makes them stronger?"

"That.... that is a hard question. Neji what do you think? What's the answer."

"No comment"

"Well we will have to investigate this further as this does seem to be contradictory."

Unanswered.


	5. Sacrifice and Loss

Sorry for being so late with this chapter work caught up with me and before I knew it months. Anyway enjoy the chapter as I'm sure you don't want to hear my excuses no matter how good they are. So here's a bad one, not to do with work or essays I've had to do. I got lost on the road of life.

Also as a weird note up until this point my chapters have been getting longer if only by a few words.

Again I own nothing in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

* * *

Sacrifice and Loss

Training. That's what they were doing, or at least had been doing until the avatar had led them off on mini vacations to get rest, with so much at stake and so little time Neji would have thought the avatar, albeit young, would have had more focus, as it was a hyperactive goldfish had more focus then him. Hell even Naruto could have more focus then him at the minute and Neji thanked the greater powers for that small mercy. Naruto being away from the village on training with Jiraiya-sama had meant that he was obviously not eligible for missions so he wasn't here right now and as such the number of people that could be hyper and annoying was limited to two. Two too many according to the grumbles that could be heard resonating from various sleeping places at night.

In all fairness though Neji conceded training was all they had done over the last few weeks since they had joined forces. Neji didn't know exactly what the avatar had done, but he knew he had started learning earth bending, in a way he was sort of similar to a Jonin back home as he had to master different elements to progress. The three shinobi had of course training of their own and as such for the most part had strayed away from the group of locals to focus their own arts by themselves. Well Neji had at least, he had strayed away on patrol and lookout whilst training to keep a look out for any enemies that might have been trying to sneak up on them, which is what he was doing now as he watched the young avatar sit and play happily upon his flute and as the strange creatures popped out of the earth in response making an orchestra.

***

Anyway the coalition was created on shaky grounds. Sure the first night was peaceful, but when exhaustion if coupled with a group of could be guards that just fought your bitter enemy to save you a temporary truce can occur. However this doesn't usually last past the morning when sleep clears and you remember with crystal clearness what is going on, how much trouble you're in and how you're going to deal with it, if you can.

"Alright!" Sokka announced to the semi-circle of people gathered around him sitting on rocks in various states of erosion. Aang, Katara and Toph on one side with team Gai on the other side. The sky was a bright blue overhead and a few fluffy clouds spun lazily across the blue air-sea. Closer to the ground the sunlight bore down on the mountain, its bright rays baking the teens and pre teens with its glow. Shrubbery crawled up the nearby rocky walls and a cave mouth opened almost ominously behind Sokka, its dark depths a start contrast to the bright light outside.

"Sokka can we please get on with this." Aang almost whined. "Its baking out here and they really don't seem like bad people."

"Yeah I agree with twinkle - toes" Toph added leaning back and angling her face up whilst blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "They did help fight off the crazy fire princess how bad can they be?"

"You don't understand!" came Sokka's strangled reply. "This is all part of their plan to make us cosy and the WHAM! We're killed or captured."

"Sokka I can't help, but think that you're blowing this out of proportion" Katara said stifling a yawn whilst shifting on her respective rock. "I mean they've been sitting over their looking over the camp for a good hour before you woke up and I only know they were doing it for that long because that's how long I've been awake for."

"I still say we need to conduct an interview!" Sokka claimed slamming one closed fist down onto his open palm. "I mean to see if they fit into our top – notch group!"

"If it will help alleviate your worries then fine." Neji said. "But can we conduct this quickly, the avatar cannot afford brakes in his training and neither can we."

"We must almost speak with Aang on some private matters." Tenten spoke up from beside Neji.

"Fine okay" Sokka conceded. "Right, ah-hem!" Sokka cleared his throat a little too dramatically.

"First question, who are you?" He asked.

"I am Neji Hyuga" Neji replied motioning to himself. "These are my companions Rock Lee and Tenten." He carried on motioning to the respective person. "We are shinobi from the village hidden in the leaves."

"What are shinobi?" Sokka asked stroking his chin and looking seriously at them.

This time Rock Lee answered with. "Shinobi or ninja are the youthful warriors from our village, we split into teams to promote teamwork and comradely and perform mission together"

"There are different ranks." Tenten carried on. "You start as genin under a Jonin sensei or instructor and then you advance to Chunin and the Jonin."

"And what are you?" Sokka asked still stroking his chin. "If only I had a beard" he muttered after asking his question. "Some sort of attachable beard would be great for situations like this and I could use it as a disguise I must get one."

"If you can put your beard ideas to one side for a moment." Tenten said in a huff. "Me and Lee are both Chunin whereas Neji has reached the rank of Jonin and is the leader of our team at the moment."

"I see interesting, interesting" Sokka said still with his hand on his chin. "Yes a beard would defiantly be useful for disguises, or for other moments like this."

"How often are you expecting moments like this?" Katara questioned.

"Guys we're going off on a tangent here." Aang said looking at what he hoped was his new group of friends.

"Oh yes sorry." Sokka replied waving Aang off. "Let's see where was I... oh yes where is your village."

"The Land of Fire." Was the reply.

People always underestimate the impact of words. Words start wars, bring peace can cause genocides or persecution or prejudice and rivalry. In the right hands words can be moulded into bringers of peace or weapons of mass destruction. The impact of the following words was as followed. As if in slow motion several things seemed to happen at once. Sokka's face contorted in shock, before passing through several emotions including fear, hatred, anguish and several other interesting variations and some emotion previously thought non-existent and some that were fairly amusing until it reached the peak of the emotion of rage. Whilst his face was contorting in not only ways previously thought impossible, but also with an unfathomable speed his arms went from hanging limply and resigned at his side to one darting behind him to grab his trusty boomerang in one hand to the other left hand grabbing his machete. Aang sprung up his glider/staff flying into his hands before being brought down into a hastily erected guard position. Katara's hands rose and fell water slithering its way out of her bottle and several other places nearby, the cooking pot for one, to form a barrier and hovering pool in front of her. Toph jumped to her feet and when her feet slammed down pillars of earth rose out of the ground near the three shinobi whilst her hands got ready in a defensive stance. Lee flipped over so his hands now rested where he had been sitting and he swung his legs round in kicks smashing aside the pillars approaching him and his team. Tenten shifted slightly uncomfortably in her place, but nethertheless had adopted a pose that whilst she may be sitting down she could easily spring into action as she held twin summoning scrolls in her hands.

Neji on the other hand reacted much more calmly merely refolding his hands and waiting for the show to finish.

"See I was right!" Sokka nearly screamed. "They are fire nation!"

"How could you betray us?" Katara asked with some pain in her eyes.

"I don't see the problem here..." Neji spoke before getting cut off.

"Well I do you fire nation bullies." Sokka said striding menacingly forward.

"Wait Sokka give them a chance to explain themselves." Aang said his eyes shifting backwards and forwards between his old friends and this new group.

"But Aang..." this time it was Sokka's turn to be cut off mid sentence.

"If you would let me finish" Neji spoke with a quiet authority in his voice. "You would note that I said 'Land of Fire' and not 'Fire Nation'."

"So what's the difference?" Sokka quizzed. "Its nothing isn't it you're here as one of your 'missions' to get us aren't you."

"Why are not here to capture you I can assure you" Neji said.

"Then you're here to kill us!?" Sokka almost cried as panic and desperation took hold of him.

"Look." Neji didn't yell, but his voice carried a silencing element to it. "We have protected you in a fight, we helped guard your camp whilst you all slept like logs throughout the night. I thank you avatar Aang for trusting us" He finished his calm outburst. "Think of it like this, even if we hail from a country very similar to your autocratic 'Fire Nation' in name at least as well as base techniques, even if we were from your 'Fire Nation' you already know we are on your side. Most of the country is evil so does that make them all stereotypically evil? Are you that prejudiced that you cannot say you like any of them? Have you never met any sensible people from the Fire Nation that you liked?" The avatars group's heads started to hang. "Think of this as well would you turn away the Fire Nation outcasts who dislike their country and wish to fight against it?"

"No... no we wouldn't." Aang muttered. "We have met some people who fled their military and we got along with them, they helped and taught us."

"Precisely there you go" Tenten said joining in."

"Besides" Lee spoke up now as he was readjusting himself into a comfortable sitting position on his rock. "At the very least those two guys seemed very close and they seemed to like each other, even if the younger one had trouble trusting us, he clearly fought your enemy and cared for each other."

"But..." Sokka said trying to retain his fighting spirit.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, is that not a popular saying here?" Neji asked. "Even if you can't fully trust because of our origin, trust us because we are most defiantly your enemies, enemies and we will fight against them, even if you do consider us formal allies.

""I... I guess I trust you" Aang said. "You have done nothing, but help us and in all my travels and I have never heard of a 'village hidden in the leaves' in the Fire Nation, not even one hundred years ago. The climate has never been right enough to produce enough forest for a village to be well hidden in."

"But then... where are you from?" Sokka asked having finally resigned and agreeing that, for the moment, he would trust the new members.

Neji leaned forward. "And this is what brings us to our business with you avatar. We were chasing an opponent in the forest surrounding our village, he had stolen an important scroll and we were tasked with its retrieval."

"Only when we got to the thief he activated it in his last moments." Tenten said standing up. She started pulling the scroll out of one of her pouches. "This is it." She said. "However, the script has faded and there is no longer any chakra stored in it. You're supposed to be a link between this world and the spirit world so just maybe if you take a look at it you can figure it out. As we figure it to be a reverse summoning scroll of some sort."

"Sure it couldn't hurt to take a look." Aang said taking the scroll from Tenten's outstretched hand. He unrolled and focussed on the scroll before looking back up at her.

"Sorry, I don't understand this scroll..." He said hastily adding "...yet" after seeing a brief flash of a disappointed look cross over their faces. "If you let me hold onto I can meditate on this matter and consult the spirit world and my previous incarnations to see if they can help me" Aang said looking brighter. "I may not understand it, but they might know about some sort of bending or at least something I can do to help you guys get home."

"Ok we will leave it in your capable hands avatar." Neji said. "Of course that means we will be travelling with you and helping you on your own quest."

"You mean?" Aang started to ask.

"Yes my youthful friend!" Lee proclaimed barging his way back into the conversation after a brief period of listening. "We will help you in your quest and who knows perhaps we will become friends."

"Perhaps huh... sure." Aang said looking up and smiling at Lee.

"Nice to see the group expanding." Toph said. "Now come on twinkle-toes, don't think I've forgotten about your training."

"Yeah, you also need to work on your water bending skills as well." Katara said as the girls began to drag off Aang whilst he grinned and waved towards team Gai and Sokka animosity forgotten.

"Team we need to go training as well" Neji said. "Sokka we will leave you in charge of the camp."

***

Time is a fickle thing, there is never enough of it at any one point, yet every always wishes for time to move on, to get older or to simply get past an event they are not looking forward to. Of course time becomes annoying when you feel like you are wasting it.

The avatar moaned as he slumped down by a rock in their camp. He had been training for the past few days on earth bending with Toph yet he still had trouble going against his natural element of wind. It was dinner time and most of the party was off around the cooking pot covering the fire in the center of their sleeping bags.

"Air and earth, water and fire. Conquering the opposite element to your original has been difficult for every avatar so far, but..." Aang muttered sliding his hands down his face. "Arrgghh! Why can't I do this. I don't have time to waste I could pick up the basics of water bending so quickly and yet I can't do earth bending at all... I have to learn all the advanced form and yet I can't do anything."

"Here." Aang looked up to see Lee standing over him holding two bowls of soup or stew or whatever it was that Katara had cooked for them.

"Thanks" Aang mumbled taking the offered bowl and spoon, but he didn't start eating straight away. Instead he chose to swirl his spoon around in his bowl as Lee sat down next to him.

"You need to eat to stay healthy." Lee said shovelling the contents of his bowl into his mouth. "It is no curry, but this is good!" He proclaimed whilst Neji just shook his head.

"How do you do it?" Aang asked.

"Do what?" Lee responded.

"You and Neji and Tenten, you all seem so powerful" Aang confided. "I'm the avatar and yet I can't learn earth bending yet you seem to have grasped your abilities well."

"I would not say that." Lee said putting his bowl down. "Neji may be a natural born genius, but he is no slacker. Tenten and I and Neji have all worked hard towards our goals. We encourage each other and drive forwards to our goals and dreams."

"But why can't I do that..."

"You have a goal Aang. Something to aim for, it drives you so as long as you keep applying yourself you will succeed."

"How can you say that with such certainty?"

"I was at first a failure." Lee said looking up at the night sky. "I could not perform any ninjutsu or genjutsu and most teachers gave up on me. I did not give up though. I focussed all my training on taijutsu and would apply myself to the best of my ability and that would only be the warm up. I wanted to prove that I could become a great ninja just with taijutsu and with Neji as my rival I had someone to spar with and something to aim for." Lee paused. "Gai sensei never lost faith in me and encouraged me to do my best." Lee looked at Aang. "You may have a lot of pressure on you, but you have friends and teachers who care for you and want you to do well, you have a goal and the drive to get there and you want to protect your friends. It is not a matter of 'if' you will learn earth bending, but when and when you do we will all be proud."

"Thanks." Aang said scooping up some of his stew into his spoon and finally started to eat. "You're right this is good!" he exclaimed before he started to eat at a speed which rivalled Lee's.

"Thanks Lee." Aang said after he had finished.

"No problem." Lee said getting up and started walking back to where his team had set up their sleeping bags.

***

Aang had finally cracked earth bending a few days ago and was now in the process of tuning it down to a fine art.

"This is great and all, but don't we have more important things to worry about , we should be making plans." Sokka said retrieving his finger from the end of Aang's flute and gesturing around him.

"We did make plans. We're all picking mini-vacations." Toph spoke up as if to just contradict Sokka for the sake of it.

"There's no time for vacations." Came Sokka's predictable retaliation.

Aang looked up before saying. "I'm learning the elements as fast as I can; I practice hard every day with Toph and Katara. I've been training my arrow off."

Katara stepped forward before adding.

"Yeah. What's wrong with having a little fun in our downtime? "

Sokka crossed his arms clearly in a bad mood.

"Even if you do master all of the elements, then what It's not like we have a map of the fire nation. Should we just head west until we reach the Fire Lord's house?" He stopped reaching up with one hand before pretending to knock on the air. " Knock knock! Hello, Fire Lord Anybody home?" Sokka stopped before clenching his fists and looking at Aang." I don't think so. We need some intelligence if we're gonna win this war."

Whilst Aang air bended himself to his feet Katara spoke up.

"Alright, we'll finish our vacations, and then we'll look for Sokka's intelligence."

As Katara and Aang consulted the map team Gai huddled together.

"Why don't we get to choose a vacation?" Tenten asked. "We've been doing nothing, but missions after you two recovered from trying to retrieve Sasuke."

"Tenten." Neji started. "We need to do all those missions for the good of the village, besides where would you want to go." He gestured around him with his arms. "We don't know where we are and we don't know any landmarks. Where could we go on vacation?"

"You raise a good point Neji." Tenten said slumping in defeat.

"Cheer up youthful Tenten. In a way this is a break, but we must keep up our training!" Lee exclaimed.

"Hey you guys!" Aang cried waving at them. "We've decided where we are going come on!"

"Alright." Neji said walking towards Appa before vaulting onto him with ease. "Where are we going?"

"The Misty Palms Oasis ." Aang replied. "It's a pristine wonder." He said whilst taking off.

***

Appa swooped down low before landing on the desert sand kicking up a large amount of sand and dust. The group dismounted and walked towards the oasis. They arrived a few decades late however as the palm trees had withered and died and only a small amount of crystallized water remained, doubtless as valuable if not more so than an actual crystal of the same size to the people taking cover from the sun's rays.

"Must have changed ownership since I was here." Aang commented whilst walking in-between the mud houses and past the dog trying desperately to gain a drink from the crystal.

Neji, Lee and Tenten quickly followed, they may have been on missions to Suna, but that still didn't prepare the shinobi that naturally lived in a shaded village fully adapt to desert sun. Toph and Katara followed them through the door dragging Sokka in with them before he could start trouble outside.

The group looked around the sparsely populated bar. A couple of people sat, hunched over at a table in the corner nursing their drinks in the low light cast by the narrow windows. Another slumped over a table asleep his snores being the only sounds breaking the silence. The bar however was more active albeit with yet another sleepy patron draped over the solid oak. A bald bartender in a green tunic stood behind the bar with two thin blades sheathed on his back whilst he talked to another patron this one seemingly more energetic this his comrades.

"I hope they're tired and that their not out because of the drinks." Neji whispered nodding towards the sleeping patrons.

"Relax." Sokka whispered back. "It's not like they're Fire Nation." Sokka paused. "No offence."

"One Mango please." Drifted over from the direction of the bar. The group stood stunned as the bartender nodded his head before turning around and slicing the ice and fruit to make the requested beverage with such finesse that it would have put all, but the most skilled swordsmen to shame.

"I don't see any problem with having one of those fruity beverages while we plan our strategy." Sokka said the previous conversation forgotten in less time than it takes Naruto to eat or inhale ramen, whichever one he did.

"That was a most youthful display of skill." Lee commented. "I too wish to partake in one of those drinks."

"Agreed." Tenten said walking towards the bar following after Sokka's dash and the others more acceptable pace. Sokka arrived and started to place his order. Whilst he was doing this the original patron in white turned around only to crash into Aang.

"No worries, I clean up easy!" Aang said with his trademark grin plastered onto his face as he concentrated before a gust of wind dried his clothes out completely. Wind however is hard to fully control as in this instance not only was Aang dried, but the man was blasted with a high velocity wind and he had to hold on to his hat to prevent losing it.

"You're a living relic!" he stated in an awe inspired voice.

"Thanks. I try." Came Aang's response as his friends crowded around him.

"An Air Nomad, right in front of me." The man exclaimed before bowing to Aang and Aang replied with a similar bow. Whilst this wordless exchange was going on Sokka was receiving the drinks he had ordered as began passing them out.

"Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University." The man said examining Aang's head. "Tell me, which of the Air temples do you hail from ?" He asked.

"The southern temple." Aang replied slightly dubiously.

Oh splendid! Now tell me, what was the primary agricultural product of your people ? Zei asked whilst measuring Aang's head with a pair of callipers.

"Uh, are fruit pies an agricultural product " Aang responded nervously.

"Oh, truly fascinating. That is one for the journal." Zei replied placing a hand on Aang's shoulder before turning after being addressed by Sokka pulling out his notepad and pen.

"So professor, you're obviously a well travelled guy. Do you have a more current map ? Ours seems to be a little dated." Sokka asked.

"Certainly." Zei replied digging into his pack to retrieve said item before unscrolling it and placing it on the table. Everyone gathered around whilst sipping at their drinks looking over the professors shoulder to get a good look at the map.

"What, no Fire Nation. " Sokka said exasperated "Doesn't anybody have a good map of that place?"

"Of course people have a good map of the Fire Nation." Neji replied. "I can think of a lot of people in fact.

"I meant people that don't belong to the Fire Nation!" Sokka almost cried.

"Who are you?" Zei asked. "Sorry I didn't mean to sound rude" he added quickly sounding excited. "It's just that I've studied the known countries and no records of people dressed like you exist and most countries are very distinctive."

"Maybe later." Neji replied quickly placing a hand on Lee's shoulder before a youth lecture could be delivered.

Katara gestured to the map. "You've made a lot of trips into the desert." She said.

"All in vain I'm afraid." Zei replied, attention drawn back to the original group. "I've found lost civilizations all over the Earth Kingdom, but I haven't managed to find the crown jewel…Wan Shi Tong's Library." He said raising his fist in triumph, before lowering it in defeat.

"You spent years walking through the desert to find some guy's library ." Toph stated in disbelief.

"This library is more valuable than gold, little lady. It is said to contain a vast collection of knowledge, and knowledge…is priceless." Zei responded in a chiding tone of voice.

Toph's sarcasm however remained. "Mm, sounds like good times."

"I wouldn't be so quick to doubt." Neji said looking at Toph his pale eyes narrowing slightly. "Knowledge does bring power with it."

"That's true. You sound well educated young man." Zei said. "Anyway the library, according to legend, it was built by the great knowledge spirit, Wan Shi Tong, with the help of his foxy knowledge seekers."

"Oh, so this spirit has attractive assistants, huh ?" Sokka asked.

"Either that or we now know where Naruto's shadow clones go to after he dispels them." Tenten said aside to Lee and Neji.

"I think he means they look like actual foxes, Sokka." Katara said chiding her brother whilst hitting him lightly on the head.

"You're both right. Handsome little creatures." Zei said reaching into his pack and pulling out another scroll. This one contained a picture of a few foxes. "Wan Shi Tongand his knowledge seekers collected books from all over the world, and put them on display for mankind to read, so that we might better ourselves." Zei pulled out another scroll this one with a picture of a great architectural wonder on it.

"If this place has books from all over the world**, **do you think they've got info on the Fire Nation, a map maybe " Sokka cried.

"I wouldn't know, but if such a thing exists, it's in Wan Shi Tong's Library." Zei replied.

"Then it's , I do believe it's my turn. I'd like to spend my vacation. AT THE LIBRARY!" Sokka yelled triumphantly.

"Uh, hey What about me When do I get to pick " Toph said waving her hands to draw attention to herself.

"You gotta work here a little longer before you qualify for vacation time." Sokka replied.

"Of course there's the matter of finding it. I've made several trips into the Si Wong Desert, and almost died each time.I'm afraid that desert's impossible to cross" Zei spoke up dejectedly.

"Don't worry." Tenten said. "This time I have a good feeling that you'll find it."

"Yea!" Sokka said. "Professor, would you like to see our sky bison ?"

Zei's head and mood moved at previously unknown speeds. "A sky bison? You actually have one ?" He asked. The group strode out the door with Sokka and Zei leading, both eager to find the library, albeit for different reasons. As they approached Appa they noticed a group of sand benders trying to capture the noble sky bison.

"Sandbenders! Shoo! Away from the bison!" Zei commanded causing the sandbenders to slink off in retreat back to their sand gliders and used their bending to flee the scene.

The group mounted Appa and took off into the sky and soared out into the desert.

***

An hour had passed of fruitless searching. Sokka had spent much of the last hour silencing searching suggestions so that he could concentrate on the ground below with his spyglass. The professor had been trying to hold a conversation with Appa whilst the rest of the original group of friends looked bored. Neji viewed the scene with almost amusement.

"There it is!" Toph suddenly yelled perking up like a dog who has just smelled fresh meat. She pointed out into the desert causing Zei and the rest of team Avatar to turn and look in the direction she was pointing in. Neji didn't even bother turning around and Tenten stifled a laugh as the friends turned an outraged indignant glare on Toph.

"That's what it will sound like when one of you guys spot it." She said holding back laughter whilst waving her hand in front of her eyes to remind them.

"It shouldn't be this hard to spot the building from the air." Katara said exasperated.

"Damn... we'll be searching for days." Sokka said starting to lose the fire we previously held.

"We will" Neji started saying. "If we do it your way."

"What do you mean?" Asked Sokka.

"Well... Byakugan!" Neji cried forming a hand seal as the veins around his eyes became more pronounced.

"That is remarkable!" Zei exclaimed moving over to Neji. "What did you just do?" He asked eagerly.

"Remarkable is... one word for it I guess" Katara said.

Neji held a look of concentration for a few seconds before pointing across the desert.

"The library is in that direction." He said.

"Alright!" Aang yelled directing Appa in the right direction.

As they neared the location with Neji telling them how far away the library was Sokka was looking over the side trying to catch a glimpse of his prize.

"There's nothing here." Zei said. "That mound of stone is nowhere near big enough to be the library."

"Do you remember the creatures Aang was playing with?" Neji stated before Sokka interrupted.

"Of course! This is the library, it's just been buried." He pulled out the scroll with the image on. "Look here. The top dome matches that piece of stone there."

Appa descended before surprisingly gently landing on the sand disturbing some from their rest places and making it fly up into the air.

***

Neji landed on his feet after jumping down from the window. Lee and Tenten followed his lead whilst the rest of the expedition scaled down the side of the library on a rope after deciding to leave Toph and Appa up on the surface. Lee observed the carnivorous library that swallowed up so many books and scrolls and ledgers and charts. It was truly amazing with beams of light braking appearing sporadically where the stone had failed the test of time. Great oak bookcases rose out of the ground each holding volumes and volumes of information on astrology to cooking.

"Oh, it's breath taking. The spirits spared no expense designing this place." Zei exclaimed as he joined team Gai in marvelling the place. "Look at those beautiful buttresses!" He carried on causing Sokka and Aang to giggle.

"What's funny?" He asked.

"Nothing" Aang replied. "We just like architecture."

"So do I" Zei replied smiling not noticing the rolling of Tenten's eyes. Zei continued his exploration of the library until they heard him cry and retreat with a large owl following him. Sokka and Katara quickly dived behind one of the nearby pillars whilst Aang grabbed Zei's hand and pulled him behind another. Team Gai quickly jumped out of the way and landed behind bookcases with their hands not holding, but in the near proximity of their weapons. The owl walked up to the rope dangling from the window they had descended from. He examined it for a few seconds before his head turned round a full three hundred and sixty degrees showing what looked like eyes in the back of his head before he spoke in a voice that echoed all around the chamber the currently occupied.

"I know you're there." He stated simply.

Zei smiled gleefully, like a child who had just received a big present, and walked out onto the bridge facing the owl.

"Hello! I'm Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University." He introduced himself.

Zei bowed while the owl just looked at him apathetically.

"You should leave the way you came, unless you want to become a stuffed head of anthropology." The owl replied looking to his left to show a wall lined with stuffed animal heads.

Zei nervously rubbed the back of his head both sending out a shaky question.

"Are you the spirit who brought this library to the physical world ?" he asked.

"Indeed, I am Wan Shi Tong, he who knows 10,000 things. And you are obviously humans, which by the way are no longer permitted in my study." The owl replied.

"What do you have against humans?" Aang questioned.

"Hmm, humans only bother learning things to get the edge on other humans,like that firebender who came to this place a few years ago, looking to destroy his enemy." Wan Shi Tong spoke before moving so that his face was mere inches from Sokka's. "So, who are you trying to destroy?"

"What Oh, no, no, no destroying, we're not into that." Sokka replied nervously trying to placate the now angered spirit in front of him.

"Then why have you come here ?"

"Um, knowledge, for, knowledge's sake." Sokka replied hopefully.

"If you're going to lie to an all-knowing spirit being, you should at least put some effort into it."

Sokka grabbed Aang to try and back him up. "I'm not lying. I'm here with the Avatar and he's the bridge between our worlds, he'll vouch for me." After saying this Sokka pushed Aang forwards.

"Ow" Aang said looking back at Sokka with an almost hurt expression before turning around to face Wan Shi Tong. "Uh, yeah, I'll vouch. We will not abuse the knowledge in your library, good spirit. You have my word."

Following this Aang bowed deeply with the rest of his group following suit.

"Hmm, very well. I'll let you peruse my vast collection, on one condition. To prove your worth as scholars, you have to contribute some worthwhile knowledge" Wan Shi Tong replied after a little deliberation.

"Please accept this tome as a donation to your library." Zei said kneeling down to present his book.

"First edition, very nice." Came the almost surprised reply as Wan Shi Tong swept the book up into his wing.

"I have an authentic waterbending scroll." Katara said producing said scroll from her pouch and handing it to Wan Shi Tong.

"Oh…these illustrations are quite stylish." He said as he swept the scroll up as well. Katara retreaed a few steps bowing to let Aang approach who after a moment of though produced his wanted poster.

"I suppose that counts." Wan Shi Tong said grudgingly accepting the offering.

The spirit then turned to Sokka who was trying to tie a knot quickly. He eventually managed to form it into a shape resembling a butterfly.

"It's a special knot. That counts as knowledge." He said hopefully.

"You're not very bright are you?" Wan Shi Tong questioned accepting the knot anyway. He turned past Sokka's indignant expression to face team Gai. Neji approached holding out a scroll.

"A map of the village hidden in the leaves." He said presenting his gift to Wan Shi Tong.

"Interesting map, I have never seen this before." Wan Shi Tong exclaimed taking the map and looking at it. "Good detail too." Lee approached next holding out one of his many notebooks.

"A list of Gai sensei's youthful advice!" He exclaimed handing over the book with a flourish.

"Yes most interesting." Wan Shi Tong said accepting the gift after a moment of hesitation.

Tenten was the last to approach and bowed before holding out a scroll.

"A scroll on the best methods to forge kunai." She said.

"Interesting." Wan Shi Tong said taking the offered scroll. "Enjoy the library." He said whilst turning in a type of voice that implies that it was a warning that promised dire consequences if not followed.

The group split up in the search for knowledge. Zei was obviously the most excited grabbing massive armfuls of books at a time. Aang was content looking up rare animals whilst Katara went through several tomes in different parts of the library. Sokka was looking for something to help him in battle and war very overtly which should have been sounding warning bells, but strangely didn't. Team Gai huddled near a bookcase on geography.

"This is a perfect opportunity to research methods of returning home." Neji said. "Not to mention we can also pick up a wealth of knowledge on other subjects about this place, we cannot let this opportunity go to waste." He stressed the last few words to drive home their importance.

"Got you Neji." Tenten replied. "I'll search the maps and charts to find similarities, Lee you can research history and their methods of battle if you want."

"Yes Tenten, I will research the battle techniques to see if there is anything to improve myself with!"

"Be careful Lee, we don't want to antagonize the spirit." Neji said cautiously. "I'll research the spirit world. Since Wan Shi Tong is a spirit and brought this library here from his world there should be a ready amount of information about it which could also help explain how we got here."

***

Lee wondered the halls glancing from shelf to shelf. He may have had more patience for reading then Naruto, but he definitely was not at the standard of Neji or Shikamaru, or at least when he did read, and as such he had taken to wondering the library observing some of the wonders it held that were not books. He had seen wonderfully extravagant and superbly illustrated paintings and carvings. He now made his way towards a room from which he could hear Sokka's voice emanating from.

"Firebenders loose their bending during a solar eclipse!" echoed out of the door. Lee was not the only one who had heard and Wan Shi Tong also made his way down a nearby row of book cases towards the room. Lee saw this and moved towards the room as well reaching it and glancing inside to see a wonderful display of engineering with a planetarium dominating the room with Katara, Aang, Zei and Sokka gathered around it. Lee barely had enough time to fully admire the room when he heard Wan Shi Tong behind him.

"Mortals are so predictable." He said before continuing. "And such terrible liars!"

***

A distant rumbling came from further down the library causing Neji to look up from the current book he was examining. Tenten glanced up at him, her face asking the question of 'who was it and what have they done?'. Neji proceeded to activate his Byakugan and was easily able to see into the far reaches of the library.

"Sokka's annoyed the spirit." He said plainly deactivating his blood limit.

"What should we do?" Tenten asked.

"You get out and inform Toph." Neji commanded. "I'm going to go help them get away from Wan Shi Tong."

"Got you." Tenten replied returning her book and began running up the wall next to the rope as rocks dislodged themselves from the ceiling and started to come crashing down. Neji let out a long exasperated sigh as he closed his book and returned it to its shelf.

***

Tenten quickly scaled the wall and flipped through the window.

"I already told you, I don't want to snuggle." Toph said protesting against Appa who then left her to walk around the library causing Toph to stumble.

"Library's sinking! Library's sinking!" She cried turning around sharply and thrusting her hands into the library stemming its descent. Tenten joined her.

"The others will be coming soon." She said.

"Good." Toph grunted in response.

***

Neji stood near the rope as he saw the groups mad dash towards him. Lee had already joined him at his side as Katara and Momo neared them. As they drew closed Wan Shi Tong appeared as Katara fell into a water bending stance Wan Shi Tong merely laughed with contempt.

"Your water bending won't do you much good here. I've studied Northern Water Style, Southern Water Style, even Foggy Swamp Style." He boasted. Before he had a chance to attack however he was struck hard from behind by Sokka.

"That's called Sokka style. Learn it!" He cried before he and Aang joined Katara and Momo. As they reached Neji and Lee Neji cried out to them.

"Go quickly up the rope, we'll cover your escape!" Sokka nodded his thanks as Wan Shi Tong began to stir.

"What about you?" Aang asked not wanting to lose his new friends.

"Do not worry my youthful friend!" Lee exclaimed giving a nice guy pose. "We will be able to make our way out the fastest and Tenten has already reached the surface."

"Where's Zei?" Neji asked dropping into a gentle fist stance.

"He's staying behind." Sokka yelled as he grabbed the rope and began to pull himself up.

"I suppose it's what he wanted." Neji muttered before directing his full attention back to Wan Shi Tong.

"Do not think you can delay me!" He exclaimed. "I have studied all the four elemental countries battle styles."

"Then it's a good thing it's us then." Neji replied as Wan Shi Tong sent a gust of wind at Neji and Lee causing rubble to be picked up and thrown at them as well. Lee span around raising a leg to send a powerful kick into the largest piece of debris, shattering it as he stood on one leg kicking away all the subsequent following pieces. He jumped back as the stronger gusts of wind started to assault his position leaving Neji behind to defend.

"Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin!" He cried beginning to rotate causing his chakra infused wing to diffuse the attacking gusts kicked up by Wan Shi Tong's wings. Neji leapt back as more debris descended on him and he flipped gracefully onto the wall and began running up it to overtake Sokka who had just managed to reach the window.

"How on Earth did you do that?" He questioned mouth hanging open comically.

"I'll explain later" Neji replied. Turning to help pull up Katara. Lee jumped into the air to deliver a spinning kick to deflect a piece of wood from reaching them. When the window was cleared Lee leapt up onto it and jumped quickly back into the desert as Toph sank down letting the library finally drop below the dunes. Aang observed the situation with Toph collapsed on the ground and Tenten lying down in the sand a few meters away.

"Where's Appa?" The question hung in the air.

"Tenten!" Lee cried hurrying over to her faster than anyone's eyes could follow.

"What happened?" Neji questioned reaching her slightly after Lee.

Tenten looked up groaning. "It was those damn sand benders"

***

With Toph busy holding up the library Tenten could only worry as she did not have the power to help Toph. Instead she stayed with Appa and was there when the Sand gliders turned up.

"What is it now?" Toph questioned hearing Appa's grunt.

"It's the sand benders!" Tenten exclaimed jumping down from her perch on Appa. The sand benders easily cruised near the library before dismounting their sand gliders. After assessing Toph to be no threat as she was pre-occupied they began to encircle Appa and Tenten whilst carrying nets and weighted ropes. Appa roared in response and let out a blast of air bending by slamming his tail down causing three sand benders who were unfortunate enough to be behind him to go flying back several feet and the crashed onto the desert sand. Tenten reached behind her pulling out a scroll and unravelling it quickly causing several kunai to come flying out of it. She span grabbing the kunai from mid air and sent them flying straight towards the ropes piercing some of them. Someone tried to through a net at her instead of Appa and she responded by drawing a tantō out of her scroll and slashing through the net with ease. Whilst she was distracted a man through a weighted net over Appa. Tenten spun and through senbon straight across, piercing the ropes that made up the net, but not harming Appa. In response Appa sent out a blast of air bending at a sand bender trying to sneak up on Tenten's blind spot. A sand bender raised his arms and swept them to his sides causing a blast of sand to erupt from the ground aimed at the two fighters.

"Don't make me put this down!" Toph cried sending a wave of earth to counter, but quickly had to turn around to grab the library as it lurched down quickly.

"Crap... It's just like fighting multiple Gaaras" Tenten cried sending a few shuriken at the sand bender incapacitating him. Another sand bender burst out of the sand behind Tenten striking down with his fists causing Tenten to spin and send a barrage of senbon at him knocking him down. Appa roared again sending out another wave of air knocking more of their assailants to the ground.

Two sand benders sent out waves of sand at Tenten whilst more threw nets and ropes at Appa. The two fighters may have been stronger, but they were fighting in an unfamiliar environment against a foe that outnumbered them. Whilst Tenten dealt with her attackers Appa could only defend against some of the entrapments stopping them as more fell onto him from his blind spots.

"No, stop sinking!" Toph cried in desperation as she could only watch... at least in a manner of speaking whilst sending out random blasts of sand and earth.

"Appa no!" Tenten cried turning from her opponents to help Appa sending throwing stars to clear the ropes and other bindings. Whilst she was doing this she left her back unprotected letting a wave of sand impact on her back followed by more blasts as the sand benders tried to exploit the weakness. Tenten turned teeth ground together. She tried to place two scrolls on the ground in preparation of rising twin dragons, but the sand benders encircled her, skating across the sand sending wave after wave of attack at her causing her to leap out of the way, not letting her pull off her more powerful attacks, or summon more tools. A rope slammed into her as she leapt out of the way of a sand column sending her sprawling to the ground. As she struggled up another rope flew at her head. She rolled out of the way and pushed herself up on her fists only to have a sand bender kick her from behind. Appa was now tiring and was covered in ropes and nets and was soon unable to move. Tenten sent more shuriken at Appa and managed to cut some of the ropes, whilst other projectiles missed and simply scattered harmlessly into the sand. Tenten could no longer risk throwing weapons near Appa as in her weakened state she was more likely to hit him and even if that chance was still very low it was not worth it, at least until her head cleared more from after receiving a blow. She threw more senbon at her targets around her hitting two and causing them to plummet into the dunes. Two others though still circled around her, skating as if they were on ice. They sent simultaneous blasts of sand at her causing a hasty dodge as Tenten leapt into the air. She was brought down by a rope which slapped hard onto her back. Another rope whipped into the back of her head causing her to fall to the sand and stay down, looking groggily up.

A sand bender glanced at her, but believing her to be finished he left her and went to help out his fellow men attach Appa to the back of their gliders.

"No! I'm sorry Appa." Toph cried with a few tears dropping down her face. "I'm sorry Appa, Tenten."

***

"APPA!" Aang cried out in pure bestial rage and despair.

"What do we do now?" Katara asked turning towards Neji and Lee and their prone comrade.

* * *

Bonus

"Welcome to question corner number two! I am your youthful host Rock Lee!"

"And I'm Tenten this time we have an answer to our question last week as sumbmitted by reviewer: Puppetplay"

"The answer is: Shinobi aren't supposed to show emotion. But they are put into teams of three, which usually entice some form of friendship. Friendship is not an emotion. Friends make you stronger by pushing you farther. So thank you Puppetplay."

"Our question this week is: What happens when the Hokage monument runs out of room?"

"Neji?"

"This time it's simple. They just perform an earth style jutsu to add more room to the mountain. This also occurs whenver a new face is added."

"Really Neji?"

"Yes. Take Tsunade's case. Before Naruto left the village the rock face next to the forth's head was behind him, yet when Tsunade's head was added her face was level with his. For this to happen when the face is sculpted from the rock more rock will have been needed to make them level."

"Thank you Neji for that most youthful answer."

Question: Answered.


	6. The Many Branched Path

Time forever marches on leaving behind the unprepared and the busy and not even sorry can bring it back.

Again I own nothing in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

* * *

The Many Branched Path

"How could you let them take Appa Why didn't you stop them?" Aang yelled, unsuppressed rage evident in his voice.

"I couldn't! The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and..." Toph yelled back in an attempt to defend herself motioning to the sand dunes around her.

"You could have come to get us! I could have saved him!" Aang yelled back unable to control himself.

"I can hardly feel any vibrations out here. The sand benders snuck up on me and there wasn't time for..." Toph again tried to speak up.

"You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone besides what was Tenten doing?" Aang interrupted accusing Toph.

"I tried..." Tenten gasped out from the ground.

Katara walked up to Aang and tried to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives." She said.

"Who's going to save our lives now We'll never make it out of here." Aang lamented still shouting as team Gai looked on from the background.

"That's all any of you guys care about: yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!" Aang said storming off.

"We're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now." Katara replied calling out to him.

"She's right." Neji said speaking up. "We can't afford a team breakdown know... you know the stakes at risk and especially not given our current position." He said motioning to the surrounds sand dunes, with not even wind lightly caressing the grains of sand that spread as far as the eye could see.

"I'm going after Appa." Aang said looking back at them. "Since I'm the only one who cares." Aang then spread out his glider.

"Its not like any of you have ever lost your friend!" He cried flying away.

"Wait Aang!" Katara cried trying to run after him before giving up after a few paces. She turned away from the crater Aang had left in the dunes where the library had once stood.

"We'd better start walking. We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba-Sing-Se."

"Tenten... can you walk?" Neji asked quietly to Tenten as Lee helped her up with one of her arms around his shoulder.

"I... I think so Neji" Tenten replied taking a few shaky steps forward before stopping.

"Yea, I'll be ok, it was only a glancing blow, I've suffered worse and I don't want to slow us down."

"Ok then if your sure... Lee, Tenten you go with them" Neji commanded as the veins round his eyes slowly started to stand out.

"What about you Neji?" Tenten asked.

"I'll follow Aang" was the reply as Neji dropped into a crouch as a blue glow emanated from his legs. "I'll catch up to you don't worry... and Lee, look after Tenten, make sure she doesn't over exert herself." He said offering a smile before he too jumped off blasting up sand into an explosion and causing Lee and Tenten to raise their arms to guard their eyes.

Katara looked and Neji's rapidly moving figure as he sprinted across the desert before turning around and starting to walk in the direction they came.

"How is he doing that?" She asked.

"He is using his chakra to reinforce his legs!" Lee proclaimed following her. "It does not require as much control as walking up walls, but instead offers an explosive boost of power to help travel great distances." Lee paused. "Although it still does not beat weight training induced speed!" Lee said.

"You also need a good supply of chakra to use it" Tenten said. "Using it to rush to a battlefield is a bad idea as you will be suffering from exhaustion before the combat has started, but for when you need to move quickly... it's very useful although easy to detect so is useless for stealth."

Sokka quickly ran up to the group before looking over his shoulder.

"You think if we dig out the giant owl, he'll give us a ride ?" he asked only to receive silence in return.

Sokka was already panting heavily with sweat pouring off him. Sand dunes encompassed the landscape in all directions offering little to no cover from the harsh sun. The intense heat caused the very air to appear to be shimmering under the hazy heat. There was not even any wind to cool the travellers down with the only water stored in the few plants scattered sporadically across the sprawling dunes. Tenten turned to look at Sokka concerned from his panting before turning to Katara.

"If you ever need a weapon I'm sure Sokka can offer you plenty of ammunition." She said trying to cheer Katara up.

"Hey" Sokka gasped out. "Don't say that... I'm too... tired... to be... sarcastic." He panted. Sokka then reached out plucking Momo out of the air before spreading his wings and trying to use him as a hat. Unfortunately Sokka then stumbled and slowed down causing Toph to crash into his back.

"Can't you watch where you're..."

"No I can't" Toph said annoyed crossing her arms.

"Sorry" Sokka replied sheepishly. Sokka looked up to see Lee almost brimming with energy.

"How can you be like that?" He asked whilst Katara looked up as she also wanted to know the answer.

"It is not so bad my youthful friends!" Lee exclaimed. "It is like endurance training!"

"Not to mention this terrain is exactly like the Land of Wind especially near the village hidden in the sand." Tenten said.

"Come on guys we need to stick together." Katara said turning.

"If I sweat any more, I don't think sticking together will be a problem." Sokka replied whilst Toph simply pushed him to the ground to get him off her.

"Can I have some water?" She asked.

"Sure, but we have to conserve it." Katara replied.

"We should have been more prepared..." Tenten said watching the original group exchange words. "For them to come into the desert and not bring sufficient water or supplies"

"Hey look!" Sokka exclaimed running towards a cactus. "Our water problems are solved!" He cried slicing the cactus in one quick slice before bringing it to his parched lips.

"Sokka, you shouldn't just drink that it could be poisonous!" Tenten cried running forward.

"Whoa calm down its the quenchiest quenching quench ever!" He cried flopping down and acting like a worm across the desert.

"What the hell is this?" Tenten asked peering over Katara's shoulder to try and get a glimpse of the severed cactus bowl.

"I don't know... some kind of hallucinogenic?" Katara said throwing the bowl away letting the few remaining drops impact on the sand leaving a few darker patches of sand before they completely evaporated.

"I think you've had enough." Katara directed at Sokka.

"Who lit Toph on fire?" came her response.

"Can I get some of that cactus?" Toph asked.

"For some reason I doubt that would be a good idea." Tenten said.

"How did we get out here in the middle of the ocean " Sokka said.

"I have got to use some of this as a weapon..." Tenten said picking up one of her many kunai and using it to extract some of the cactus toxin and stored it in a vial before dismissing it to a scroll.

A large blast suddenly erupted in the air several miles away.

"I hope Aang's ok." Katara said looking fearful as a large anguished scream followed it.

"Neji's with him he'll be ok." Tenten said to reassure Katara. "Besides I think there's someone else you should be worrying about." And with this Tenten motioned to Sokka who was doing a rather good impression of a worm.

"Sokka is displaying the flame of his youth!" Lee suddenly exclaimed stopping to look at Sokka.

"Yea..." Tenten said glancing at Lee. ""I just wish he'd do it in the same direction as the rest of us..." Tenten made to carry on walking before looking back to see Lee standing watching Sokka.

"Maybe I should..."

"Lee if you do that I will hit you!" Tenten cried before joining Katara.

Night fell quickly on the desert plane, the searing heat turning rapidly to the freezing cold. Tenten and Lee unsealed their sleeping bags from their scrolls in their kits, but the rest of the gang had nothing to cover themselves with to escape from the harsh desert conditions.

"Tenten..." Katara asked. "Can we share the sleeping bag?"

"Sure" Tenten replied. "It will help keep us warm and protect us from hypothermia."

Lee offered to share his sleeping bag with Sokka whilst Toph pulled up a small amount of earth just big enough to fit herself under.

"What" She said when they turned to look at her. "I don't want to share and no there is not enough earth here for me to make us all a tent."

"Is there any more water?" Toph asked before Tenten tossed her a flask of water. "We shinobi are prepared for a couple of days hike, but we will need to stock up soon" Tenten paused. "I reckon we have another day or two if we push our supplies to the limit so we had better hope we are out by then."

"I hope that monster from earlier doesn't come after us." Sokka said fearfully to Lee whilst the girls conversed.

"What monster?" Lee asked.

"You know" Sokka said "The one that screamed earlier and nearly broke our eardrums."

"Sokka" Lee replied. "I think that was just someone showing their youth."

"Sokka let me see the things you took from the library" Katara said turning to her brother.

"What!" came Sokka's strained reply. "I didn't steal anything! Who told you that!" He claimed pointing an accusing finger at Momo. "It was you! You ratted me out!"

"I was there with you" Katara replied exasperated before she simply just took his bag.

"Oh yea..." Sokka replied before asking. "Why do you want to know about the stars anyway?" He asked as Katara liberated a star chart from the confines of the bag.

"I believe Katara is planning to use the stars to navigate towards Ba-Sing-Se" Lee said. "If we travel at night when it is cooler we will find the trip more pleasant and we can rest during the day, provided we find some shade to prevent the sun from getting to us."

"But I need rest now..." Sokka whinged.

"Oh relax." Tenten said. "We won't be leaving for a while so you can rest now for a few hours."

"True" Katara said before looking back the way they had come. "I hope Aang and Neji will be ok... how will they know where to go?"

"Don't worry" Tenten said comforting Katara. "Neji can use his Byakugan to find us like he found the library."

"Yea, how does that work?" Sokka asked.

"It's a bloodline trait from Neji's clan... but I will not say more than that." Tenten replied. "If you wish to know more you will have to ask Neji and even then he might not be allowed to tell you."

"That's ok we understand" Katara said sending a pointed look at her brother. "You guys get some rest, I'll figure out what where we are going and then we can head out."

"Hey guys!" Sokka exclaimed perking up from his previously slouched position. "I think I can see some shelter ahead."

"That's just a mirage" Katara replied not wanting to get her hopes up.

"No it's not!" Toph said joining in. "I can sense it there's a rock. YES! Finally some earth!" Despite the scorching sun the three began sprinting, well wading given how hard it is to move in sand, as fast as they could to the rock.

"So much for travelling at night." Tenten said wiping sweat from her brow.

"Come on Tenten do not let the heat dampen your flame of youth!" Lee exclaimed.

"It's not my flame of youth that's damp." Tenten said sending a sidelong glare at Lee.

"Besides Tenten..." Lee said "We need the cover for the middle of the day and we were too exposed at our last location."

"Fair point" replied Tenten trudging through the sand at a more sedate pace then her companions.

"Hey I think the cactus juice's effects have finally gone" Sokka exclaimed as Tenten and Lee jumped up onto the rock to look into the cave where the first three had entered.

"Finally." Katara said looking around. "I take it that means you won't be eating any more stupid..."

"Hey look at this!" Sokka cried diving for a yellow sticky substance clinging to the walls of the cave before he eagerly grabbed some and with Momo shoved it into his mouth.

"You've been hallucinating on cactus juice all day and then you just lick something you find stuck to the wall of a cave" Katara said exasperated.

"I have a natural curiosity."

"Yea about eating random things that have effects that are anything but natural." Tenten chided.

"I don't think this cave is natural." Said Toph facing towards the deeper part of the cave. "It looks like it was carved by something."

"Why do you think that?" Asked Lee turning so he had his back to the entrance

"She has a point" Tenten said leaving the brother sister argument. "The shape is wrong for this to be natural."

"There's something buzzing." Toph said straining her ears. "It's getting closer... look out! Something's coming this way!"

True to her words as soon as Toph had finished a giant blur rushed out of the cave followed by several more blurs. Tenten and Lee jumped back using chakra to enhance themselves to get immediately to the exit whilst Katara, Sokka and Toph ran for the exit. As they dived for the exit three of the blurs adjusted themselves in the air in front of Tenten and Lee so they could be seen hovering just out of reach. They were striped black and yellow and looked familiar to wasps, yet these creatures were far larger and looked more deadly.

"What the hell are these things!" Tenten cried. "They're like mutated wasps!"

"They're buzzard wasps!" Katara cried back before ducking under a rock Toph had thrown in a blind fit to hit her opponents.

"I can't see them!" Toph cried in despair.

"Don't worry!" Sokka cried brandishing his machete. "I'll deal with this!"

"Sokka... there's nothing there." Tenten said sweat dropping.

"I guess my head is not as clear as I though." Sokka laughed before the panic kicked in again.

"If only I had some water to bend." Katara said hastily dodging several dive bombs.

"Toph! Wasp to nine o'clock!" Katara shouted between dodges as Toph sent a large boulder spiralling out to smash into the wasp knocking it out of the sky with rubble and blood falling down to impact on the sand below with the thirsty sand claiming the red liquid in but a few seconds.

In the centre of this maelstrom Lee stood composed, meditating with his eyes closed. He breathed out a deep breath before his eyes snapped open. Each heartbeat could be heard easily in his ears, the beats of the wasps wings seemed as loud as Naruto's battles and he could see the wings moving and not in the blur for everyone else. He readied himself before he catapulted over a wasp falling down below the cliff edge to land on another wasp he knew was flying there to do the excess noise it created with its wings. He landed harshly on its back, using it as a springboard even as its wings gave out and it plummeted to the ground and Lee found himself above his starting position and swung his legs around in round kicks to smash away his opponents before falling down only to land on a thin rod of wood held out by Tenten. They smiled at each other before Tenten used the rod to swing Lee at the wall causing him to flip around to land feet first on it. Then with a mighty crack causing rocks and debris to impact on the ledge Lee flew into his foes like a diver crashing into the water and he took out several with his initial charge back to the desert floor. Most wasps followed him down while the few that remained had their wings sliced off by accelerating kunai. A demon wind shuriken managed to hit a wasp above its abdomen severing the thin part keeping it together and causing the two halves to spin down to the ground causing an impact and sending sand flying upwards. Lee could be seen down below jumping and spinning and fighting the rest of the wasps.

"C'mon we have to go!" Tenten commanded grabbing Toph and jumping down to meet up with Lee. Sokka and Katara shared a look seeming to say 'is she crazy?' before they ran down the path they had taken up to reach the bottom only to meet up with a sweating Lee smiling as he flashed his teeth at them, which seemed to shine even brighter in the desert if that was even possible, and pulled off a patented 'nice guy' pose.

"I see a bright light... must go into the light? Mustn't I?" Sokka said, almost as if in a trance.

"No Sokka" Tenten chided. "You do NOT want to walk towards, or look, at that light."

"Anyway my youthful friends!" Lee exclaimed as they began walking away from the hive. "What should we do now?"

"There's nothing else we can do." Katara sighed. "We must continue onwards towards Ba-Sing-Se and hope that Aang and Neji meet up with us."

A loud cry emanated from Toph in the background causing Lee, Tenten, Katara and Sokka to turn and glance at her on the sand rubbing one of her toes, glaring venomously at a slightly metallic looking rock whilst cursing under her breath. They looked for a few seconds before turning back to their conversation.

"If only we had some form of transportation." Sokka said placing his chin in his hand doing his 'thinking pose'. "It would cut our travelling time massively and it would be so much easier." To aid his statement he made a slicing movement in the air with his hand."

"We could always take the glider." Toph said joining them.

"Yea we could always take the... wait what!" Sokka exclaimed turning to look at Toph in shock. "You mean there IS a method of transport we can USE?" After saying this Sokka turned away from the others and raised his hands in the air. "I have magical summoning powers FEAR ME!" He yelled whilst Katara blushed in embarrassment looking at him whilst Tenten sent her a look of understanding.

"I know what it's like" she said whilst patting Katara on the back.

"What glider is this?" Lee asked his eyes shining as he turned to Toph. "Where is it?"

"It's over there" Toph said turning and pointing at the metallic rock they'd seen her at earlier.

"I don't mean to doubt you Toph." Tenten started as Sokka ran up a dune yelling "Come to me oh magical fruity beverage" before he looked around with Momo on his head looking in the opposite direction to him scanning for any tropical drinks in low orbit. "But how do you know that it's a glider?" Tenten finished.

"I kicked it hard enough to dent it." Toph said looking straight at Tenten. "I could tell exactly what it was... I may not be as good with metal as I am with earth, but with the amount of force I hit it with even Sokka could of told what it was." Toph and Tenten turned to look at Sokka crying before trying to get his tears into his mouth to quench his first. "Then again maybe not Sokka..." Toph said pondering.

"Anyway" Katara said. "Even if we have a mode of transport there it will be a challenge to get it out."

"A challenge!" Lee yelled the aura of youth glowing visibly even in the harsh desert sun.

"Oh dear" Tenten sighed.

"What is it?" Katara asked. In reply to the question Tenten merely pointed at Lee running towards the submerged glider.

"I will show my youth! Gai – Sensei I will make you proud!" Lee exclaimed before gripping the metal corner and lifted as hard as he could. To say Lee lifted the glider out of the sand would have been an understatement Tenten thought. Lift would imply a slow speed and maybe control and a glider does not have much control when it is moving quite fast with sand streaming off it in a downpour not to dissimilar to the waterfall at the valley of the end, of course the thing about it that really says that Lee had lost control was that the glider was currently five feet in the air, with Lee still holding on to the end.

Lee however, despite appearance to the contrary, was in perfect control. He flung himself aboard the glider and adjusted his position on it so it was as stable as it was possible to hold on a flying glider before he aimed to back onto the sand dunes. It crashed onto the sand kicking up the sand that had fallen off it previously. Lee managed to make it stop right in front of Tenten and Katara.

"Thanks Lee" Tenten said jumping onto the glider and looking around it.

"This looks like a glider the sand benders use" Katara said climbing aboard herself before turning to help Toph get on.

"But how are we going to power it?" Katara said. "It looks like it needs to be powered by sand bending, or at least air bending... me and Toph can't make this go."

"Don't worry." Tenten said motioning at Lee whilst Toph yelled for Sokka and Momo to get on. "Lee can make it go."

"How?" Katara asked.

"Simple I will push it." Lee said grinning before he jumped behind the glider. "Tenten" He cried. "Which way do we need to go?"

"Due West" Tenten shouted in reply "Towards three o'clock" she added checking the compass as Lee let out a roar.

"What's he going to do? How's he going to move this thing?" Sokka asked.

"If you had been paying attention earlier you may have some idea." Katara asked as a blue glow burst into life around Lee's legs. "He did get this glider out of the sand before."

Whatever Sokka's reply had been it was lost to the wind and became little more than a scream of panic as Lee started running faster than Sokka could normally whilst pushing a glider weighing a couple of tons with several people gathered on top of it and with wind resistance as the sail caught in the wrong direction as Lee moved so fast the wind seemed to be blasting into them like some kind of Airbender deity had decided to attack them.

Of course with such a huge acceleration a huge amount of sand was kicked up, spiralling into the air behind Lee as more sand burst out from under his chakra empowered feet as he almost flew across the desert and pierced through sand dunes that got in the way and tried to impede his progress. Of course such a presence of a sand glider travelling like a ocean going galleon with sand blasting up around the prow and travelling at high speeds is going to attract attention and as such several sand bender tribes had spotted them and had already taken to their own gliders in a race across the sand as they tried, and for the most part failed, to keep up with Lee. However numbers are always an asset and with several of the nomad tribes already in the area as Lee began to close on the transition from desert to earth several gliders had already stopped in front of Lee as a barrier and with Lee beginning to tire from being an engine more and more of the sandbenders gliders were catching up to him.

"Lee, left, left move left!" Katara cried as the glider shifted over before a blade of sand pierced through the sand that the glider had previously occupied naught but a few seconds ago.

"How are you able to move like that across the desert?" A sandbender cried from a glider to the left of Lee's glider as they closed in before ramming the side of their glider into the team's glider.

"How can you run like that?" Was heard before the man was forced to duck but a rather large and impressive array of weapons clattered into the metal of the glider.

"How did you outsiders even get a glider?" A man yelled as another glider smashed into the right side of the team's glider forcing the gliders behind to pull back so that they didn't hit their allies. Some tried to speed up over the sand to get ahead of Lee.

"We don't need to tell you!" Came Katara's reply as a blade of water slashed out at the opposing glider slicing through its sail causing it to swerve away as it lost control of its speed. The glider crashed into Lee's glider once more before veering away and flipping over to crash into a sand dune. Another glider cam up from the right to take its place however as a sandbender sent a blast of sand at Lee's legs causing him to have to jump over the blast before he leapt horizontally causing the glider to accelerate past their current foes. The backlash of sand and chakra shocked and blinded the sandbenders causing two gliders that had been approaching from behind to be up-ended and fall over vertically backwards by the explosion of force. The one approaching from the right swerved and crashed into a dune as the sand from the explosion caused the driver to be momentarily blinded and added to his sand whirlwind powering his craft overpowering the craft. Sand from the dune enveloped the craft as it crashed into it. The craft that had been previously thought to be stuck to the left of Lee's craft was sent spinning across the desert before it slowed facing the wrong way. After stopping the crew quickly got the glider started again and resumed pursuit although they had fallen behind by several seconds making all the difference as they would be unable to catch up again. However another glider closed in on the team from the left.

"Toph glider left!" Lee cried as Katara and Sokka held onto the glider for dear life as Tenten held Toph on board whilst using chakra to stick to the metal floor. Of course she had adjusted her posture in order to lower her centre of gravity and not fall over.

"Got it" Toph replied as Tenten let go of Toph so she could bend and soon a wave of sand was flying away from their glider towards the opposing glider looking like a torpedo travelling through the sand before it burst out and capsized the sandbenders glider. Lee ran as fast as he could over the sand, his legs blurring, as he swerved to the left and right over the sand and dunes avoiding the attacks of the sandbenders and other members of their tribes. He catapulted off a dune flying several feet before crashing down onto the sand. His legs nearly gave way, but he managed to move out of the way as another glider crashed down to his right and another glider approached from his left. A third sand glider almost fell on top of Lee before he pushed himself clear causing the falling sand glider to impact on the sand and sent sand flying forwards to trip Lee up. A fourth sand glider was not travelling fast enough over the dune so plunged face first into the sand below as Lee fell giving the glider one last final push with chakra enforced arms before he fell over, prone, on the floor with the two opposing gliders on the flanks desperately accelerating trying to keep pace with their prey as Tenten let loose a desperate cry for her teammate as he disappeared under the hot metal of the third remaining sand glider. As the glider passed over him instead of a sickening crunch a loud clang could be heard as a massive dent appeared in the floor of the glider before it flew upwards and spun around crashing back down to earth upside down with sandbenders toppling out of it. Lee jumped to his feet.

"Go... run!" He cried. "I will catch up later!" before he reached down to his leg warmers.

"Gai – sensei, I am sorry." He muttered. "But this is to protect my precious people!" He cried glaring up and pulling up his weights as the previously spun sand glider finally caught up again and flew over the dune and raced towards Lee. There was a faint look of recognition in the pilots eyes as he saw Lee standing in the desert holding to long strips of weights. Lee threw one weight directly at the pilot, hitting him square in the chest and causing him to fly backwards off his glider with a crunch as at least two of his ribs broke. The next weight was thrown onto the floor kicking up a huge amount of dust and sand obscuring Lee and the opposing glider from view. As the glider approached Lee in the obscuring cloud Lee poised himself than jumped aside at the last minute and kicked into the sail with enough force to bring the glider to a grinding halt as Lee was thrown backwards out of the cloud.

"Dynamic Entry!" He roared as he sprung back into the cloud. A pause of silence followed by a loud metal clang was heard before the glider fell apart from the force of the kick and several components flew out of the cloud to land near the driver in the dune.

"Foolish boy." A sandbender cried. "You are at a disadvantage in this sand now. We have the ability to attack you from all angles and you don't know where we are."

"Then I will just have to clear the sand and attack everywhere at once." Lee replied yelling. Some sand started to solidify and congeal around Lee.

"We will capture you and find out your secrets!" Was torn from the lips of several sandbenders.

"Leaf great whirlwind!" Was Lee's response as he spun and kicked up a tornado of air around him blowing away all the sand obscuring his vision and blasting away the sandbenders and their attacks. Some rising up with the whirlwind only to fall once they reached the top and slam back into the ground. Lee stopped spinning and looked up.

"Why do you distrust outsiders so much." He asked looking at the groaning sandbenders.

"If you tried for peace you might not have to be so hostile" He said picking up and returning his weights to their rightful positions. He turned to look in the direction he had pushed the glider.

"I hope the others are ok" Lee said as a huge cloud of dust arose and span up from the area. Several more gliders pulled up next to him.

"Green outfit with orange leg warmers and bandages. No doubt you're the one we were looking for." Came a voice from the leader of the gliders.

Lee turned.

"That is a good description of my youthful self." He said observing the man with side burns and a beard of brown hair, but was bald otherwise. He was flanked by two men with bandages covering their heads. On another glider stood a nervous looking man with longer hair who was also flanked by men with heads wrapped in bandages.

"I must congratulate you on beating these tribes. Not all of us are bandits and thieves, but some do give that impression." The man spoke again pausing for thought. "Now then... on to business."

After Lee had sent them flying with a burst of acceleration things had not improved much for Tenten and the others. Namely travelling at a quite high speed with no control over loose sand with experienced enemies bearing down from both flanks and the front was not the situation the ninja academy had trained its pupils to get into.

This of course is moot since if this is the point Tenten had realised that the ninja academy trained you perfectly for the real working life of a shinobi , she would not have made a good one, or more likely she would be dead.

Waves of sand parted from the prow of the sand glider as it passed over the dunes. Tenten applied chakra to her feet to steady herself before launching a few kunai with exploding tags at a passing glider to her left. The kunai struck home with a clang and before long a resulting explosion tore into its side and sent it crashing away. Tenten surveyed the rest of her team and concluded that there was not much hope. Katara was struggling with her limited water supply and had fallen back to just telling Toph where to shoot. Toph was struggling in the desert with limited rock and sight and Sokka was desperately trying to find a way to steer or slow down their glider.

"Take cover!" Came a cry from Sokka as he looked up to see a blockade of sand gliders stretching out in front of them.

"We'll never survive that impact!" Katara cried in anguish.

"What?... what is it?" Toph cried. "I demand to be informed as to what you're panicking about so that I may panic about it as well."

"Well the good news is that I've figured out a way to stop the glider!" Came Sokka's reply.

"That's great!" Toph said happily. "I can't stand this mode of transport any longer without Lee in control." She paused. "But wait what's the bad news?"

"The bad news is we're crashing!" Came Katara's reply.

The sand benders on the flanks not wishing to forgotten so soon began sending projectiles of sand over and onto the glider and without Lee to guide it many more meet their target causing the metal to shudder and groan against the sudden strain.

"Hold on!" Tenten cried readying more kunai.

"How are throwing knives going to help us?" Sokka questioned. "Unless that is some seriously epic paper on the pack."

Tenten replied by throwing her kunai at the sand in front of their glider and slightly in front of the blockade. The glider passed over kunai and Tenten choose that moment to detonate the exploding tags. A great explosion of sand and dust erupted out from under the rear of the glider causing it to up end and flip forwards over the blockade before Tenten, Katara, Toph and Sokka fell from it and landed sprawling on the ground with a thud as the glider shattered around the hole caused by the explosion and fell mainly with a loud thud and kicked up a dust cloud as it fell slight past them. Shards of metal rained down on the sand dunes piercing deep into the sand and managing to cripple one glider. The rest of the sand benders disembarked their gliders and advanced on the group, weary of their skills. The advance was stopped when Toph kicked up a dense wall of sand between the two opposing parties.

"I won't let you hurt my friends!" She cried defiantly as Katara and Sokka stumbled too their feet.

"Tenten!" Katara cried in worry as Tenten had tried to get to her feet by propping herself up on her hands, but she soon fell down back onto the sand.

"I-I can't get up." Tenten gasped out. "I never recovered from the injuries I sustained originally." She paused gasping for breath. "With that explosion, I think I've hurt myself more seriously I need medical treatment."

"Don't worry we'll protect you." Katara said moving in front of Tenten's prone body and got into a guard position.

"We aren't murderers" came from the bandages covering a sand benders head in a deceptively young voice. "We're just thieves really."

"Then why are you attacking us." Came Sokka's reply.

"The older members of our tribe may not like direct confrontation and don't even want us to steal at all." Came another young voice.

"The fools!" another yelled. "Don't they see that this is the only way to survive out here. We need to steal and attack outsiders if need be."

"Now try not to resist." Came a voice and the sadistic grin could almost be heard in his voice. The standing members of the group tensed. "This might not be too painful... we may even get your friend medical attention."

Sokka, Katara and Toph tensed in fear and anticipation as the sand benders charged forward. They were but a few scant feet from each other when a howling wind blew across the dunes slicing through the sand and causing both parties to hold up their arms to protect their faces. Tenten covered her head in her hands before looking up.

"I won't let you hurt my friends!" Came a cry from a slightly glowing figure, though Tenten wondered if that could just be a mirage holding a staff.

"Yes" said another robed figure dropping down next to the first and batting away a blast of sand with ease with two of his fingers.

"And I was wondering... could you tell me where my other friend is?" He asked calmly eyes glowing as he stalked forwards.

"ARRRRGGGGHHHH!" Aang cried slamming his staff down onto the ground causing a large mushroom shaped cloud of sand to erupt skyward.

"You are quite a hard person to track." Neji said, a lot more calmly than his companion. "Do you have any idea how far you've flown?" He continued. When Aang only turned to glare at him before looking away in disgust Neji carried on undaunted.

"You'll make them worry Aang." Neji said.

"What do you know." Aang spat out. "Let them worry. Let them worry now but when Appa was being taken everything was FINE then wasn't it."

"It was not Toph's fault that Appa was taken." Neji said "Neither was it Tenten's". His voice was level by anger was lacing his tone.

"They was there they could have done SOMETHING!" Aang yelled back.

"Toph was in an unfamiliar environment trying to save us." Came Neji's reply. "If it was not for her we may not even have broken the surface AND Appa would still have been taken." Neji paused. "Would you have preferred to have been left trapped underground to your doom whilst Appa was taken off and then he truly would have been lost because he would have been on his own without a friend to come after him, but we need to do it together as a team."

"A team yea right. What was Tenten doing whilst Appa was kidnapped!" Aang yelled back at Neji before he turned and blasted another sand dune from existence. He paused only to send a harsh blast on his bison whistle out.

"She was injured trying to protect your bison!" Neji spoke, almost yelling, almost. His tone was laced with anger now.

"Other members of your party are in trouble and yet you only think of yourself. Some party leader you are. One member is lost and instead of thinking about the remaining members who might be suffering as much as you, you choose to blame them all despite them doing the best they could to help the situation!"

"Well what do YOU know about loss!" Aang yelled turning to yell at Neji giving him his full undivided attention. Wind whipping around the two ruffling Aang's and Neji's robes and Neji's long hair. Sand flowed on the dunes around them as the wind harshly caressed the dunes.

"You don't understand do you?" Aang yelled flinging his arms up sending to blasts of air rocketing out from his palms, the sand being kicked up into blades where the only hint that they were there. Neji jumped and span to the side.

"You naive fool!" Came Neji's reply no longer calm. "You think you're the only one with loss?" Neji landed lightly on the sand glaring at Aang.

"My whole people are dead and I've just lost the only link to them I had!" Aang replied. Sending out another blast of air at Neji. Neji merely cut through the air with two chakra infused fingers as the air blast dispersed around him making his clothes and hair flap erratically around him.

"You don't get it!" Neji replied. "Your too busy lamenting the old links to care about the new links!" Neji stopped for breath. "Yes Appa is gone but he's not dead! If we can find him we can rescue him."

"What's the use... we'll never find him." Aang said slightly calming down as his depression took hold.

"Again with that defeatist attitude. How the hell did YOU become the leader?"

"Well what else has been lost? Tell me that Neji!"

"Toph can't visit her parents. They are still around yet she's lost them that can be even more painful." Neji yelled in retaliation.

"Sokka and Katara's village has been raided and they've lost many tribes people to the Fire Nation attacks because the avatar wasn't around to prevent it. They've lost more than just one sky bison and they've lost family and yet they don't blame you for not being there to help, for your mistakes, for the fact that it could be your fault. You judge Toph yet none of your companions judge you in the same way. Yet you still go off like this. You may be young, but your also the avatar and your companions aren't much older than you are."

"So" Aang said his voice cracking slightly. "That's only a few people."

"In my village I am an outcast from my clan. Most of the main branch would happily sacrifice me if I got caught and I once almost killed my own cousin, the only one who stood up for me. Lee has been picked on due to his inability to perform ninjutsu and genjutsu. Tenten does not know her parents at all. "

"Yea but..." Aang tried to start, but Neji interrupted again.

"One member almost got killed when his best friend betrayed our village. We chased after him to bring him back and his best friend drove his hand into his chest. He give him enough wounds to kill him three times, I dread to think how he survived. This same person has also never been allowed to live in peace in the village and both his parents are dead and you have the audacity to proclaim yourself the only grieving person."

Aang looked down sheepishly.

"Look around you." Neji said gesturing to the desert. "We are in the middle of unfamiliar territory and we've lost a companion and you storm off and blame your friends. That's not a good leader. You won't save anyone by doing that, in fact you may lose more people."

"But..."

"This world is war-torn. Attempt to keep the old links for I can't blame you for doing that, but don't endanger your new links..." Neji looked away from Aang as the wind began to die down. "Katara, Sokka, Toph, Lee, Tenten, we all care about you and Appa. His loss pains us as well and it pains us to see you like this. They need help and support that is what a leader is for."

"All right." Aang said with some authority in his voice despite his few years. "I get your point now let's go back. I'm fine now"

"No."

"What?"

"I don't believe you." Neji replied with a stony stare.

"What do you mean?"

"You do not mean that you get my point and it would be a danger to bring back an emotional and reckless leader."

"Fine then!" Aang cried, his arrows glowing as he hovered.

"Eight trigrams empty palm!" Neji yelled sending a blast of air and chakra right into Aang knocking him back.

"What was that for?" Aang cried jumping back to his feet. "I thought you cared about me I thought you were different from the Fire Nation."

"I do care for you" Neji replied taking a battle stance. "But until you show me your resolve to help your companions we can not go back. An indecisive leader will not help us regain Appa."

"I told you I'm fine!" Aang yelled sending wind blasting at Neji. Neji disappeared from view before the wind hit him making it dissipate amongst the sand dunes harmlessly.

"Then show me!" Neji said appearing beside Aang. "Actions speak louder than words." Neji span attempting to deliver an open palmed strike into Aang's stomach. Aang threw himself back on with a blast of wind and landed, but for a second before propelling himself up with an air current and began to hover several feet in the air above Neji. Neji paused before sending a barrage of shuriken at Aang. The shuriken pierced through the air before shaking slightly and falling as they lost their momentum before Aang's outstretched hand.

"Upsetting the air with vibrations... clever" Neji grinned before leaping to his left as an air blast tore up the sand he had occupied scant moments before. Aang gestured with his staff before making slicing motions. Aang span and delivered horizontal and vertical cuts in the air before Neji had to somersault out of the way as the blades of air crashed into the desert floor, cutting up the dunes and sending vast clouds of sand into the air. Aang scanned the ground and caught site of the dust cloud moving. He sent a powerful shockwave towards where he believed Neji to be before an explosion tore up the ground and countered Aang's shockwave. As a by product this also cleared the battlefield revealing nothing but sand. Aang looked surprised as he felt a disturbance in the wind and glanced behind him to see Neji perform an axe kick and send him flying to the ground. As Aang hit the ground he spat out short breathes catching Neji as he fell with small blasts of air that pierced through Neji's clothes as he tried to protect his vital spots. Aang gestured and Neji was flung to the ground as the air slammed him to the ground. A cracking sound was heard before a loud explosion of smoke appeared showing Neji's pack crumpled on the desert.

"Eight Trigrams vertical rotation!" Neji cried as he appeared over Aang and performed a somersault with a chakra wind following him around. Aang grunted as he raised his own barrier of wind to meet it. After what felt like an age but was actually a brief moment Aang sent Neji flying back. Aang flew up after Neji only to be countered by Neji spinning in mid air and performing eight trigrams heavenly spin. Aang flew into one dune as Neji flew into one opposite it. The two combatants lay there panting. Gasping for air the way a drowning man might. After a few minutes Neji spoke.

"That's good Aang." Neji said straining before managing to make it into a sitting up position. "You can be a good fighter and a good leader, but you lack experience." Neji stood up and made his way to Aang. As a leader you must learn to take the events fate deals you in stride and move on.

"Life is made of events and how you deal with them... and with a little experience you will learn how to do with events beyond your control." Neji offered the prone Aang a hand. Aang looked up before grasping it and allowing Neji to pull him to his feet.

"Thanks Neji." Aang looked around him. "If nothing else that has helped clear my head."

"Good" was Neji's reply. "Because we have company." The two turned around to view the dust cloud that was rapidly approaching them. As the two watched a group of strange craft came into view before pulling up in front of them.

"What are you outsiders doing in the desert?" The lead man clad in robes cried. "The open ground facing the full power of the sun is no place for a duel."

"How are you?" Asked Neji putting out a hand to hold Aang back.

"We don't have to an..." another sandbender started before the first stopped him with a gesture.

"I am Sha-Mo" He replied. "Of a the Hami tribe and this is my son Gashiun, now who are you."

"I am Neji Hyuga from the Land of Fire and this is Avatar Aang."

"Fire Nation!" cried Gashiun. "Quick father we must capture him."

"Wait." Aang cried. "He is not from the Fire Nation and I the avatar will vouch for him as a friend and an ally."

"Is this going to happen everywhere?" Neji asked Aang.

"Unfortunately yes."

"Oh the joys of being tied with a fascist power with delusions of grandeur."

"If you'll vouch for him avatar then we will take your word."

"Wait father how do you know he is an airbender?"

"How do we know you arn't thieves?" Neji replied.

"I don't take kindly to those stereotypes." Sha-Mo retaliated.

"My apologies." Neji replied. "We should not judge on stereotypes of people we meet."

"Agreed" Laughed Sha-Mo. "I apologise for thinking that you were evil as well, despite my better judgement."

"He has the arrows and I know that their fight had two air users in it by the way they were fighting. Though I would be curious to know why they are friends now."

"Even the best of friends can spare to hone their skills, to settle differences." Neji replied. "Or beat some sense into them when they do something stupid."

"I still want to know if he truly is the 'avatar' that's been missing for over one hundred years." Gashiun said.

"Do I detect a hint of fear in your voice?" Neji asked. "Like you're worried or have done something you wish you hadn't know you have the clarity of hindsight."

"YOU TOOK APPA!" Aang practically exploded as rage filled him. His arrows glowed and he rose a few inches into the air with causing vicious winds to whip around him.

"What have you done Gashiun?" Sha-Mo asked.

Neji placed a hand on Aang's shoulder.

"Aang calm down." He said glaring with Aang at Gashiun, his eyes level with Aang's. "We need information and we can't afford to antagonise this tribe just because of one gang of youths." Neji grinned. "Besides, it's harder to extract information if you take out their cognitive abilities."

Gashiun took a panicked step back.

"Where's Appa?" Aang demanded slightly calmed down from Neji's talk and presence, but still filled with rage.

"I-I don't know!" Gashiun stammered back waving his hands in front of him. "We sold him to a group of Beetle – Head merchants and I think they were taking him to Ba-Sing-Se. I swear I'll help you in any way I can, just don't hurt me."

Aang turned away in disgust and strode forward a few paces to look over the desert before screaming in rage. His airbending skills amplified it and caused a shockwave to tear through the dunes.

"You will give us directions and transport to Ba-Sing-Se." Neji said looking at Gashiun. "We will also follow my lead to pick up the rest of our group."

"Yes of course we will." Sha-Mo said glaring at his son. "It is a tradition of ours to aid people we have wronged. When do you want to set off?"

Neji looked at Aang and then the sky.

"We should find cover for now and then you can tell us about these merchants and Ba-Sing-Se." Neji said. "Then we will resume travelling to find our friends."

"Of course." Replied Sha-Mo.

The wind rustled through Neji's hair and clothes as the glider practically flew across the dunes only hopping and shuddering as it passed over a few dunes. Neji turned as his hair flapped about wildly to observe the sandbenders manning the contraption. The tornado of sand easily powering the glider. Neji or Aang could have easily piloted their own gliders, but to make up for their wrongs the sandbenders had volunteered to power them allowing Neji to use his Byakugan to navigate the terrain towards the rest of the party. Aang was lying by the edge putting his hand in the dunes like a child on a boat dipping his fingers in the water. Neji knew Aang was feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders and he now no longer had his best friend Appa to help him deal with it.

"Are you sure we're are going towards your friends?" Sha-Mo called out snapping Neji out of his reverie and making him turn to look at him. Gashiun quailed slightly as Neji's vein emphasised eyes passed over him to rest on his father.

"Yes I am sure they have headed this way." Neji replied. As they skirted around a large rock which was the only piece of earth to be seen for miles.

"Well it's just that this leads to Ba-Sing-Se and I'm unsure how they could have travelled across the desert so quickly."

"They can be very inventive." Came Neji's reply. "They have maps of the area from the library and I'm sure Lee will help with the travelling."

A buzzard wasp flew lazily over head. Closed inspection revealed that its wing had been bent in a way that was not natural. The snadbenders could almost have sworn that it looked like it had been kicked. It flew into a cave on the earth before the sandbenders let out a sigh of relief.

"Buzzard wasps can be deadly opponents." Gashiun said. "I wonder what happened to that one."

"Now I definitely know my friends came through here." Neji said smiling.

"Your friends must be powerful to stop the buzzard wasps from patrolling." Said Sha-Mo.

"Yes they are powerful, but not powerful enough I fear in this unfamiliar environment."

"Why do you say that?" said Sha-Mo as Aang raised his head to look at Neji.

"Because of that dust cloud in the distance." Neji replied pointing out several small specs of dust moving rapidly across the desert.

"Curses" cried Gashiun. "Other tribes must have seen them and are after them."

"They we should hurry" Aang stated standing up before breathing deeply for two breaths. He then slammed his hands forward and a massive tornado sprang up powering them forward. The sandbenders quickly grabbed onto their craft as Neji released chakra through his feet to remain on the craft before sinking down to help keep his balance.

"Hold on" Aang cried redundantly. "I'm going to catch up to them."

As they closed in on the rest of the team Neji realised that Lee was no longer in view pushing the glider. He wasn't too concerned as he knew Lee could handle himself, but he was still slightly worried. He was however more worried about the others that he could still see being pursued by a large number of enemy combatants and with that information he made his decision.

"You guys" Neji commanded sounding every inch the Jonin that he was. "You go after Lee, I've already described him too you so you know what you are looking for. Aang we'll go after the others... I fear that they are in more trouble."

"Ok Neji" Aang replied readying his glider and looking resolute.

"Roger!" The sandbenders replied.

With that command Aang launched himself from the glider and flew off towards the conflict. The sandbenders looked up at a small disturbance in the flow of wind to see that Neji had disappeared from view. The sandbenders kept travelling straight on seeing Neji running across the dunes at high speed easily keeping up with the avatar flying on his glider.

"Up ahead sir!" Came the cry from a glider to Sha-Mo's left. "We can see a fight up ahead, it might be this 'Lee' that Neji was talking about."

"Ok" Replied Sha-Mo shouting over the wind. "Full speed ahead in case he needs any assistance."

As Sha-Mo approached the fight he could see the cloud of sand suddenly disappear amidst what appeared to be a freak tornado. He signalled for the gliders to come to rest as he came closer and head the young man lecturing about peace.

"Green outfit with orange leg warmers and bandages. No doubt you're the one we were looking for." Sha-Mo said.

The boy turned.

"That is a good description of my youthful self." He said

"I must congratulate you on beating these tribes. Not all of us are bandits and thieves, but some do give that impression." The man spoke again pausing for thought. "Now then... on to business."

Lee tensed.

"Haha, sorry boy I didn't mean it like that." Sha-Mo said hurriedly I meant that we met your friend Neji and wish to help you.

"You know Neji?" Lee asked looking happy at the thought of his companion being back.

"Sure, we agreed to help him after we found out that my son and his gang stole your Avatar's bison."

"It was you!" Lee asked.

"Yes and my son is sorry for it." Sha-Mo replied. "But we have already talked to Neji and the Avatar about that matter and for the moment we should focussing on helping the rest of your group."

"Tenten!" Lee yelled turning. "I hope she and the others are ok."

"Don't worry" Gashiun spoke up. "Neji and the Avatar headed for them as they thought you were ok. Get on and we'll take you to them."

Lee turned back to the sandbenders and gave his 'nice guy' pose.

"Thank you my youthful comrades."

"Just... just get on. Please." Gashiun whined as he cowered from the bright light that is the powerful desert sun reflected off Lee's teeth.

Neji felt his heart clench in fear as he saw Tenten lying prone on the ground as Katara, Toph and Sokka moved to protect her. Neji saw Aang react to the scene.

"I blamed her, but she got seriously wounded trying to protect Appa." Aang spoke dejectedly.

"There will be time for remorse later." Neji said. "If we can rescue them now that is."

"Right." Said Aang looking up as a faint glow started to emanate from his arrows. "I'll show them just how much I value my friends." Aang jumped up before throwing his glider into their. As it rose Aang extended his arms and blasted air from them making him spin a way similar to Neji's heavenly spin as Aang gained momentum his glider span back down towards him which he deftly grabbed and used it to launch blades of air whilst forming more around his orb of compressed air. At the end he batted his glider forward and all the air that had been compressed around him exploded out in that direction. The wind roared through the valley towards the group before with blunt force and slicing wind smashing into the desert and sandbenders sending a few flying and protecting Katara and the group.

"I won't let you hurt my friends!" Aang cried hovering just above the ground as he directed a glare at the sandbenders. The sandbenders looked shocked at the display of power, but one soon came to his senses before sending a large amount of sand blasting out towards the new opponent.

Neji took this moment to land next to Aang before he reinforced his fingers with chakra and used two of them to slice through the approaching attack.

"Yes" Neji said looking at the one who had launched the attack. "And I was wondering... could you tell me where my other friend is?" As Neji spoke he began advancing at a brisk walk whilst his veins started to stand out as his Byakugan activated. Neji broke out into a trot followed by a run as Aang flew past him to slam into a sandbender before he bounced off him to hit another sandbender in the face with a round kick. Aang then slammed his staff into the ground and spun around it kicking three more sandbenders away before finishing off by firing a blade of wind out as he span which took out another two and finally launching himself into the air from his staff and as he fell back to earth he slammed down causing a shockwave to emanate out to hit yet more sandbenders as he controlled it so the area with his friends did not suffer even a slight change in wind. Neji just ran into the crowd and span and ducked and weaved in and out of guards bringing pain to them as he hit their chakra points and disabled them.

"Y-your friend fell earlier over there." A panicked sandbender cried out as Neji advanced on him. If he thought that this would distract Neji he was sorely mistaken as Neji made his body experience pain that went beyond sore. Katara, Toph and Sokka looked at the carnage before Katara ran out towards Aang.

"Stop Aang! Please! Even they don't deserve this punishment." Aang turned to meet her, before he ran up to her and hugged her.

"Don't worry, me and Neji haven't done anything nearly as bad as it looks. Anyway I'm glad to see you again Katara and Tenten." Aang looked over at Tenten grimacing on the floor, but she managed to smile.

"I'm sorry for what I did earlier." Aang said "I was just frustrated at losing Appa."

"It's ok" Tenten coughed out. "I understand."

"Tenten be careful don't push yourself." Neji said running over to her to check up on her, tenderly taking care of her basic needs of comfort as Aang signalled for Katara to come over and help her.

Katara paused as, if only for a moment, she had thought that Aang while better had not returned to his usual cheery self. She discounted it later with a shake of her head before rushing over to help Tenten with her injuries. Sokka kept a watch over the groaning sandbenders. He was amazed to find that Aang was right and that the sandbenders where not hurt as much as he had originally thought. He gasped in terror as he saw three more gliders rush towards them.

"Guys more sand guys are coming!" He yelled in a panic.

"Don't worry" Neji said looking up. "I've been expecting them." Neji got up and turned as the gliders slowed to a halt near the group.

"You're late Lee." Neji said jokingly as Lee jumped off the glider and ran over to Tenten.

"To prove my youth I will do two hundred press ups to make up for being late!" Lee cried, but before he could start Neji stopped him and looked at Sha-Mo.

"Thank you for the transport. We know where we are going from here."

"Are you sure... we could help you more." Sha-Mo replied.

"No, your gliders will not work outside the desert and a smaller party is better at avoiding patrols and suspicion. Besides, we've almost reached the end of the desert anyway." Neji paused as Aang walked up to them.

"Thank you for your help Sha-Mo." Aang said. "Maybe after I have found Appa I will be able to forgive your son."

"That seems fair." Gashiun mumbled embarrassed.

"Then we bid you farewell" Neji said as he and Aang waved at the sandbenders as they readied their gliders.

"May we meet again in more pleasant circumstances!" Lee yelled waving at them as Tenten propped herself up to wave as well. As the group watched the sandbenders retreat back into their desert homeland Katara turned to face Aang staring out over the grassy and rocky terrain that welcomed them to the next stage of their journey. She did not want to set him off, but she felt that she had to ask the question.

"Aang... have you really forgiven them for stealing Appa?" She asked.

Sokka gasped in shock at his sister, but Aang didn't react as violently as he thought he might.

"I may not like Gashiun and his gang for stealing Appa, but... I can't blame Sha-Mo and the rest of his people for it. He and Neji taught me that. I will only hold my grievance with the people who stole Appa and attacked you. I can't judge everyone for the actions of the few, it isn't fair."

"Aang's right" Neji said. "Now we should move out of this desert and find a good place to set up camp and rest for a while. We need a break and we will most likely require a rest before the tasks ahead."

"Good idea." Said Katara. "It will give me a chance to heal Tenten and we can consolidate the intelligence that Sokka wanted so badly."

* * *

Bonus

"Hello and here we are again after another horrendous and unyouthful break. I'm your host Rock Lee as Tenten is still recovering."

"The question this time is: Does the author take so long thinking up these question segments, or are the jsut lazy. Why does it take so long to be updated."

"An interesting question. The answer is that when threatening someone with shuriken for not updating and they call your bluff if you attack them they are unable to write"

Question Answered.


	7. The Reptilian Road

Well it does appear to have been a long time and surpsingly I am still around. Also Legend of Korra was really good in my opinion the steampunk stuff was really good and it makes me want to write somthing in that time frame of the avatar universe, but I'll see how long this lasts first. As for the ending of Korra I thought it was good apart from perhaps the deus ex machina ending with Aang and Noatak, but what are you going to do? Anyway standard disclaimer still so: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

The Reptilian Road

Two figures intertwined flowing through the air with grace, one spinning repeatedly in a show off performance of acrobatics with unneeded flourishes. The other had water droplets falling beside her, whizzing around her body in a whirlwind as water from the lake below rose to meet her.

"Leaf - Water bending bomb yeah!" Came the cry as Lee and Katara plunged into the depths of the cool water. Splashing up large amount into the air, refracting the sunlight into a spectrum of colours, speeding over the dirt ground before the water quickly follows it. The leaves rustle in the trees as the waterfall crashes down forcing Lee and Katara away from the wall of water. As Aang lies sprawled out his ice melting around him as he lifts himself and turns brushing the dust off himself as he starts laughing along with Toph and Tenten.

"Sure, 5000 year old maps from the spirit library, just splash some water on 'em." Sokka yelled out indicating the now drenched map held tenderly in his hands.

"Sorry" Katara muttered exiting the pool ringing out her hair as Lee tried to swim up the waterfall in the background exclaiming about his youthfulness and proving himself to Gai causing Tenten to continue laughing, relaxing now fully healed, but still slightly sore by Katara's hands as Neji rolled his eyes from the shade provided by the tree he was leaning against.

Katara strode up to Sokka motioning with her hands and drawing out the water she had splashed onto the map, causing Sokka to gasp at the sudden dryness of the parchment clenched in his hands before he squatted down and spread out the map placing stones in each corner to pin it down.

"So, did you figure out what route we're gonna take?" Aang asked cheerily as the others closed around the map, looking down at the pondering Sokka as Lee retrieved a towel from his bag along with his green jumpsuit.

"Okay. We just got out of the desert, so we must be around here, and we need to go to Ba Sing Se, which is here. It looks like the only passage connecting the South to the North is this sliver of land called the Serpent's Pass." Sokka replied using the map by his feet to help point out the route. As team Gai shifted slightly.

"Serpent's Pass?" Tenten questioned so that only her teammates could hear her. "For some reason that gives me a bad feeling" Lee and Neji nodded slightly, almost missing the next part of the discussion.

"You're sure that's the best way to go?" Toph spoke up, not really caring about the map.

"It's the only way, I mean it's not like we have Appa to fly us there." Sokka said looking up at the expectant faces, startling Katara who hurriedly whispered at him,

"Shush up about Appa. Can't you at least try to be sensitive?" They threw a worried and concerned look at Aang.

"It's fine," Aang said, looking slightly downcast, but his voice still retained some of his natural cheeriness "I'm worried about Appa, but I'm not about to let that cloud my judgement about the rest of you." He paused. "Besides we need to concentrate on reaching Ba Sing Se to warn the Earth King."

"Not to mention that since it's the capital and therefore the largest settlement in the area that people are going to be fleeing to, there's a good chance that either the slavers or the people who bought Appa will be heading there anyway" Neji spoke up.

"That's right" Tenten exclaimed. "There's a good chance we'll find at least some information on Appa at Ba Sing Se and we promise that we will find Appa."

Aang nodded his thanks to his new teammates as Katara got over her shock.

"Oh, well, ok. I'm glad you're doing better." She stammered out as Sokka rolled up his map.

"Well onwards to Ba Sing Se!" He exclaimed as he started to pack up the supplies still lying around the lake. The group paused and turned however when they heard the unmistakeably sound of leather squeaking on the dirt as a group of, what would appear to be Earth Kingdom refugees going by their dress, approaching them as the leader raised his hand in greeting.

"Hello there fellow refugees!" He cried smiling happily to see fellow travellers even as Sokka's face seemed to show the opposite feeling as his anxiety started up.

Lee approached the group smiling at the young man, what was clearly his wife and a teenage girl as the other two members of his team hung back slightly with the others.

"Are you heading to Ba Sing Se as well?" Lee asked bowing slightly to the man as Aang ran up to the strangers and Lee eager to meet new people.

"Sure are, we're trying to get there before my wife Ying has her baby." He exclaimed leaning over to rub his wife's belly smiling at Lee and the young avatar before smiling over at the rest of team Gai and Aang.

"Great, we can travel through the Serpent's Pass together." Katara said walking up with her pack slung across her back as the others grabbed their bags and joining them as well. Noticing warily the surprised and fear laden reactions of the Earth Kingdom trio.

"The Serpent's Pass? Only the truly desperate take that deadly route." Ying said gasping and raising her hand to her mouth.

"The desperate huh?" Toph questioned. "Good work Sokka" She said lightly hitting Sokka in the arm, which unfortunately for him meant he got a rather large bruise on his arm due to a difference in opinion on what constitutes 'lightly'.

"What?" Sokka whined looking at the others "We are desperate. He rubbed his arm sheepishly glaring at Toph, which of course achieved little.

"You should come with us to Full Moon Bay. Ferries take refugees across the lake. It's the fastest way to Ba Sing Se." The husband said as the girl tried to stifle a giggle at Sokka and Toph's antics.

"And it's hidden, so the Fire Nation can't find it."

"Well in that case I wonder which we'll pick. Deadly route or peaceful ferry?" Katara said, weighing up each option on her hands. "Whichever one shall we pick?"

"I thought it would be obvious!" Lee exclaimed. "We take the route to prove our youthfulness and test ourselves!"

This statement was quickly followed by several looks, asking 'are you serious' and Tenten's hand impacting harshly onto the back of his head.

"Lee, first of all she was being sarcastic, the question was rhetorical" Tenten sighed. "and secondly, why would we choose that route when she is pregnant and we're just tempting fate by using it when we have an easy, direct route which will allow us to warn the Earth King sooner.

"Time is an issue" Neji nodded in the background.

"Right so let's go!" Aang exclaimed running off with Lee in hot pursuit as it quickly escalated into a race.

"They don't know where they're going, do they?" Tenten sighed, adjusting her supplies to not agitate her body which still argued passionately its displeasure of less than adequate rest.

"It doesn't matter so long as the wait at the crossroads" The man replied happily turning to look at her. "My name is Tahn" He indicated to himself, followed by the girl "and this is my sister Tehne" Said girl nodding at the group.

"If it's secret how do people know where it is?" Neji asked, curious as to how people could know about this secret port without the Fire Nation finding out.

"It's been around for a while" Tehne spoke up "I heard that smugglers used to use it to get things in and out of Ba Sing Se, but the authorities found out and managed to take over it. When the war started they sent out messengers to Earth Kingdom cities, towns and villages to spread the message that in the case of an invasion it would be used as a back up route for refugees."

"But what if the Fire Nation take over it?" Sokka asked. "Surely then they could just use it to ferry their troops straight into your city."

"That's the beauty of it" Tehne exclaimed happily. "It's protected by some of the Earth Kingdom's finest benders!"

"But surely the Fire Nation could over power them." Sokka asked, his fear not placated.

"That's not what I meant" Tehne pouted. "I meant that it's built into a side of a cliff, you have to at least be with an Earth Bender to find it, let alone open it as there are no hints as to where it is and the earth bender guards will retreat into the port if they see fire nation patrols leaving no evidence that there's anything there.

"Seems highly secure" Tenten noted, realising how useful it could be to only have members who could manipulate the same element in the same hidden locations as it made it harder for conflicting elements to get in, since they could tailor make their defences to suit their countries skills.

"We better catch up to the others" Katara said as they increased their pace to catch up to the more energetic members of their party.

* * *

The group passed through the sun kissed valley, having caught up with Aang and Lee at the crossroads, it having turned out that the race had ended in a draw when both racers realised they didn't actually know where they were going. The trees shifted and creaked in the light breeze flowing down the valley, making the shadows jump and dance on the ground, as if in some waltz with the trees casting them. The three refugees took up the lead, seeing as the actually knew where they were going with team Aang following behind and with team Gai bringing up the rear.

"We're almost there" Tahn spoke up as they approached a cliff emerging out of the swaying tree tops and the sound of water started to be heard. The rag tag group approached the surprisingly flat cliff face as the two green clad guards looked suspiciously at them.

"Halt!" One cried. "State your purpose!"

"We wish to catch the ferry to Ba Sing Se" Tahn replied indicating his wife. "We must get there soon as my wife is heavily pregnant."

The second guard approached the group, driving his heels into the ground slightly more then perhaps necessary. Before inspecting each individual.

"What is he doing?" Sokka questioned quietly after being scrutinised.

"He's scanning us." Toph replied as if it was the most obvious thing "He's using my technique to an extent to check us for weapons, of course since he's not as good as me at it, he's still having to rely on checking us in the normal way."

"They don't seem like fire nation spies sir!" He called back to the guard by the cliff face. "But these three are dressed strange." He said glaring at the three shinobi at the back. "One looks to be earth kingdom, but I can't be sure.

"They're with me!" Aang quickly said, trying to avoid any more fire nation / land of fire confusion. "I'm the avatar." He spoke his arrow tattoos glowing slightly as he manipulated the wind to blow the leaves away from him, culling the still air with movement.

"Thank the earth, the avatar!" The guards exclaimed as the quickly returned to their posts before slamming their feet and moving the arms and suddenly a chunk of the mountain slid away to reveal a cavern contained within the mountain with a dark pool of water at one end with the cave hanging ominously over the sea exit to the cave. Even with the lights embedded into the ceiling to allow artificial light to mingle with the little natural light available from the small holes in the ceiling the group had to pause for a few moments waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darker environment.

"That's amazing!" breathed Tenten as Sokka, Aang and Lee nodded their agreement as even Neji seemed impressed by the cave.

"This is my kind of place!" Toph happily yelled, charging into the depths quickly followed by the rest of team avatar and the refugees as the wall closed behind them, sealing them in as two other earth kingdom guards watched them enter from the shadows. The team trekked further into the cavern, passing by other groups of refugees hurriedly scurrying through the tunnels as they finally reached the main part of the cavern allowing them to see with much more clarity the extent of the way as the room was crowded with families and friends and neighbours and strangers, all supporting each other and trying to stay relaxed as guards shepherded them onto the awaiting wooded ships and barges bobbing in the water, creaking and groaning with so many people and possessions forced onto them. All of a sudden a wooden ship cast off swaying in the wind as it traversed towards Ba Sing Se carrying it's precious cargo to what they hoped would be safety.

"I can't believe how many people's lives have been uprooted by the Fire Nation." Katara spoke up, looking around at the huddling people as the cacophony of voices rose again, only trumped by the screams of babies and young children.

Tahn spoke up sadly from behind the group. "We're all looking for a better life. Safe, behind the walls of Ba Sing Se." He looked over at the assembled throng of people as the GAang moved towards a booth manned by a rather repulsive looking and irritated woman who was currently arguing with someone the group seemed to recognise, yet they weren't able to identify.

"I've told you already, no vegetables on the ferry!" She yelled at the cowering man in front of her. Spit flew from her mouth to land unwanted on his face. "One cabbage slug could destroy the entire ecosystem of Ba Sing Se. Security!" At this cry an earth kingdom guard motions an enormous platypus-bear towards his cart which rears up and smashes down with its claws, scattering the vegetables across the ground as the man sinks to his knees screaming "My cabbages!" as he watches forlornly as the vegetables roll away as two guards pick him up from under his arms and drag him off as the platypus-bear knocks aside the remains of the cart before moving away as well. The woman harshly stamps down on a piece of paper before looking up yelling "next!"

Aang sheepishly approached the women.

"Um, four tickets for the ferry to Ba Sing Se, please." He asked.

"Passport" She demanded holding out her hand.

"Uh, no one told us we had to have passports."

"Don't you know who this is? He's the Avatar!" Sokka butted in pointing at his leader and friend.

"Ah, I see fifty Avatars a day, and by the way, not a very impressive costume." She replied losing interest as the group turned to look at the group of avatars off to the side each with varying levels of similarity with Aang.

"Besides no animals allowed" She said pointing at Momo cowering behind Aang's head. "Do I have to call security?" She asked as Aang and Momo turned to face the platypus-bear currently chomping down on a cabbage.

"No that's ok" Aang stammered.

"Next"

"Why doesn't he just prove it with airbending?" Tenten asked as Toph strode up to the woman.

"I'll take care of this. My name is Toph Bei Fong, and I'll need 7 tickets." She declared slamming down her Bei Fong passport onto the desk, gaining the undivided attention of the women manning the booth.

"Oh! The Golden Seal of the Flying Boar, it is my pleasure to help anyone of the Bei Fong family" She said bowing with several unneeded flourishes.

"Yes it is your pleasure!" Toph declared "as you can see I'm blind, these three imbeciles are my valets" She flung a hand haphazardly in their direction.

"But what about the animal and the other three?"

"This" Toph started grabbing Momo from Aang's shoulders "Is my seeing eye lemur and these three are my guards, as you can't expect a Bei Fong to travel unprotected in this environment!"

"Of course not ma'am!" The stamp descended quickly seven times as the documents were processed. "I can't refute the officialness of this Bei Fong passport so I suppose it is worth seven passports and tickets.

"It is" Toph said turning thanking the women curtly before holding out the passports for the rest of the group.

"Alright! We scammed that lady good!" Sokka yelled in triumph before noticing that two of the tickets remained. "Hey where did Lee and Neji go?" He asked, placing a hand on his chin before being interrupted by a rather attractive young guard behind him.

"Tickets and passports please" She asked firmly spinning him to look at her.

* * *

Whilst the avatar and his friends were off getting the tickets for the ferry, the three shinobi had stayed back glancing around.

"There's a lot of people here..." Tenten said looking around worriedly. "I'm worried that under the stress of evacuation and security being spread so thin that people might devolve to crime."

"Surely not Tenten!" Lee exclaimed. "How could people do that to fellow refugees?"

"Times are desperate, there's no telling what civilians will do when faced with hard times, they're not trained like we are and if security is thin like Tenten said then things could escalate." Neji said as Lee and Tenten nodded in agreement. "Not to mention the fact that if they only check that the fire nation doesn't gain access then criminals might be able to get in and with this crowd..." Tenten started before they were distracted by a cry. They turned and saw an agitated Tahn run over to them.

"You have to help us!" He pleaded "Someone has stolen our passports and belongings!" His voice was getting hysterical. "Without passports we can't get tickets and without tickets we'll have to walk and I'm worried about my pregnant wife trying to get to Ba Sing Se over the serpents path."

"Not a problem!" Lee almost yelled. "My team and I will help you" He reassured Tahn before turning to Neji. "Could you track down the culprit with you Byakugan?" He asked. Neji looked around at the surrounding crowd, trying to see if there were any disturbances.

"I'll try, they'll be likely to leave the nearby area in a hurry and then get a ticket soon before anyone notices so I'll look for people like that" He explained as the veins by his eyes started to stand out as he scanned around, ignoring any surprised gasps or mutterings from the few people that noticed him.

"There's a man running through the crowd over there" He indicated through the people in one direction. "But there's a couple of other people glancing over their shoulders at us from that ticket both over there" He announced. Before he had even finished however Lee had taken off in the direction he had pointed at first as Tenten nodded sprinting off towards the booth.

"Will everything be ok?" Tahn asked, scrunching up the hem of his shirt worriedly.

"With those two everything will be fine." Neji said firmly.

"Well at least for us" he muttered in an undertone.

* * *

Lee had started off as soon as Neji had pointed out the location of one of the thieves and nimbly weaved his way through the throng of people as he caught sight of another person parting the sea of people as they swarmed around him, closing behind him but not allowing him to lose his green clad pursuer.

* * *

Hamu cursed, throwing another hasty glance over his shoulder. He cursed again at the fact that he had been convinced into this. Even with the earth kingdom security lax due to the stress of guarding so many people, people still noticed petty crime. Then again he reasoned, it was hard not to notice your worldly possessions and lifelines disappear when you'd suffered so much to get here. He knew it was just bad luck that it was his crime that was discovered and that most people would have got away with it. He looked back noting that his pursuer had disappeared from view. He grinned. Maybe this wasn't so bad, maybe he could still get away with this and sell the goods he'd stolen for money to set him and his three accomplishes up in Ba Sing Se. They just needed to get the tickets with the stolen passports and they'd be fine. He rammed suddenly into what felt like a fleshy wall and he fell backwards. He glared up at the person he'd ran into as red mist clouded his vision.

"Watch where the spirit world you're going you idiot!" He yelled, wondering why the figure was only wearing one shade of green. "Are you some sort of fire nation class idiot?" Then again what were those orange things wrapped round his legs? They weren't common clothes. In fact the only time he'd seen them before was about five minutes ago on that youth that arrived with the group with the fake avatar...

The realisation hit him like a boulder as he looked up to see his pursuer had somehow managed to overtake him and was looking down at him.

"Damn it!" He yelled, dropping the stolen prizes as he sprung up grabbing a knife from his boot and slashing up at the teen standing in front of him who deftly leaned back as the knife passed only millimetres under his chin. Hamu dropped back into a more defensive stance, spinning the dagger around in his hand. His opponent positioned one foot back into a more steady posture before springing off his back foot, cocking an arm back as Hamu slashed forward with his knife, only for a hand to clamp around his wrist and he could only watch stunned as his opponent spun around as he twisted his feet round yanking him forward slightly unbalancing him before finishing his spin and ramming an elbow strike into the back of his neck and he kissed the floor. Darkness encroached on his peripheral vision as stars danced in front of his eyes as he heard more then saw the boots of armed guards arrive and converse with his attacker, before he felt himself wrenched up his arms, protesting at the action as he was dragged off.

* * *

"Next!" Naom cried looking over the assembled crowd. A nervous looking couple approached, sending panicked looks over their shoulders and glancing around furtively. It might have been suspicious given other circumstances, but seeing how this was a hidden harbour for refugees, it was perfectly understandable that they might be nervous as they could have been fleeing just ahead of a fire nation army before arriving.

"Passports" I asked holding out my hand and taking the offered papers as I noted that there were three passports there. I raised an eyebrow for a moment in question.

"The other's securing our goods" The man replied smiling at me in what I figured he hoped was a disarming way. I thought about questioning him, but I could see an attractive looking teenager approaching and she seemed to be focussing on the couple so displaced that fear in the back of my mind. I reached for the stamp and was about to slam it down and issue them there tickets, until the girl arrived and with her hands on her hips started talking down at the couple.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" She paused looking at their shocked faces. "How could you steal that poor families passports? His wife was pregnant" She yelled indignant.

"What do you mean?" The man yelled back, though his body language looked a bit shifty. "Those are our passports and my brothers! We've been fleeing the fire nation for several weeks before coming here!"

"Oh really?" The girl said looking smug. "In that case," She reached over and snatched the passports out of my hand as security started to close in on my booth, although interestingly I noticed that the 'couple' seemed to be more nervous by the approaching guards. "perhaps you can explain why your 'brother' is a girl?"

I was stunned. The girl was right, the third passport belonged to a twenty something year old woman, and the other two passports ages didn't match up to the 'couple' standing in front of me.

"Is everything ok here?" A guard asked looking sternly at the three in front of my booth.

The man started to speak, his face going red as he got flustered, but the girl kept her calm and answered before he really had a chance to get his excuses out "No it's not, this couple and their friend have stolen my friends passports when one was pregnant and have taken off with everything they own!"

"Is this true?" The guard asked looking at me.

"It looks like it sir." I replied "The information in these papers doesn't seem to match them or the information they've given me about their third member.

"W-wait we can explain!" The man yelled before one of the other guards spoke up.

"Sir, I know this couple. They, along with one other man, operated a group of thieves in the town I'm from, they've used the confusion of war to steal from refugees."

The captain didn't waste any time in bending up some earth from the ground to wrap around the couples wrists.

"Thank you Naom and you too stranger for helping us capture these two criminals." He said. "Now we just need to catch the third member of this group."

"No problem there sir" The girl spoke up. "One of my other friends went after him and he should have caught him by now" The guards heard a scuffle and turned, seeing another man being dragged away by a guard mounted on a platypus-bear. The captain quickly joined up with him and took the criminals off to a room in the side of the harbour, where they would have to wait for punishment.

I turned to thank the girl, but she had already wandered over to her friends and had taken a ticket offered to her by a girl as a flying lemur spun lazily around her head and another guard approached them. I gave my attention back to the queue that had formed in front of me, shaking my head. Seems like not all good had gone from the world.

* * *

The ferry slowly moved out of the harbour, the rocks behind them shifting slightly to better hide the secret entrance. The wooden boards creaked under foot at the strain as water splashed up against the side, covering parts of the deck with cold water. This couldn't alleviate Aang's excitement about being on the way to Ba Sing Se and possibly Appa.

"This is so awesome!" Sokka yelled. "Finally we get to travel by boat again!" Sokka practically skipped to the prow giddy with being in a more natural environment for him.

"I don't get it?" Toph said grumpily, folding her arms across her chest. "What's so good about a boat, there's no ground!" She yelled. Toph turned to where she thought Katara was standing "Is it a water tribe thing?" when she received no answer she returned to glaring forward. "Yea it's a water tribe thing."

Suki laughed slightly at Sokka's change in personality although she was still slightly annoyed by his reaction her coming along, why had he been so unenthusiastic about her coming along? She was further annoyed by the fact that neither Aang or Katara had explained why, despite it being clear that they knew. She turned her head, feeling the breeze whip her hair around as it drove the sail and therefore the ship forward, to look at the new companions. Toph seemed grumpy now, but it was understandable as to why she would disapprove and Suki liked the sarcastic young girl. The other three were more mysterious though. She had nearly had a panic attack when they'd told her where they'd come from before explaining the differences between their 'land of fire' and the fire nation. She wasn't sure if she could trust them, but then she reasoned. Even if they were from the fire nation, which admittedly seemed unlikely from the way two of the three acted, so long as they wanted to stop the fire nations quest for world domination and help the avatar she could give them the benefit of the doubt.

Team Gai were looking at the path and collection of rocks off to the side.

"So that's Serpent's Pass?" Tenten questioned. "It doesn't seem so bad."

"True!" Lee exclaimed from besides her. "Perhaps it was named after its aesthetics, as opposed to any other reason.

"You might be right there" Tenten replied. The path did wind around in an inefficient manner, however its meandering did not fully justify the name.

A panicked cry cut off any further discussion as the earth kingdom sailors ran about on the deck, in a system of organised chaos and terror as the captain continued to cry.

"Fire Nation! The Fire Nation has spotted us! We're under attack!" came the cry again and again, terrifying the refugees on board as the groaned and panicked and despaired.

"What are the fire nation doing here?" Sokka cried out stumbling back down the deck as the wood creaked as the boat changed its course trying to avoid conflict with the sleek metal battleship approaching it, decked out in fire nation insignia. "This was supposed to be an easy, safe trip!" Sokka yelled finally regrouping with his friends.

"The fire nation controls the western lake. Rumor has it they're working on something big on the other side, and they don't want anyone to find out what it is." Suki replied, hanging on to the side of the ship as fireballs started to smash into the water just off the side of the ship. Singing the wood slightly as the water evaporated and hot water started to splash onto the deck, burning those unfortunately enough to get in its way. Smaller metal craft emerged from hull of the fire nation ship, fires blazing at the back as the two person craft skimmed over the water as one fire bender kept a steam engine at the back burning as the 'gunner readied his hands sending blades of fire towards the ship. Katara ran to the other side of the deck and raised her hands, turning to raise a wave to rush back towards the skimmers, extinguishing the blades of fire and capsizing some of the smaller craft, sending the unfortunate soldiers tumbling into the water. They quickly resurfaced and tried to right their craft, but this was prevented by Katara freezing the craft into blocks of ice, making the fire nation soldiers try and melt it with their bending whilst trying to overcome the water in their bulky armour. Other craft still approached however as the weaved past the blasts of air sent by Aang and Neji as earth kingdom soldiers appeared on deck rushing to the side of the ship. Some held bows and quickly raised their bows, ripped arrows from their quivers before quickly nocking them and bringing them up to the full draw, pausing to fully aim through their reference points before loosing the shafts. The arrows span quickly towards the craft, unfortunately due to the difficulties of aiming at a fast moving target whilst shooting from a boat most missed, flying harmlessly into the ocean. One struck a fire bender powering a craft in the breasts, knocking him from his skimmer and plunging into the ocean as his gunner sent a replying blast of fire knocking the archer back in an explosion of splintering wood. Another arrow stuck a vital part of the boiler causing the craft to explode sending the fire benders flying, one crashing onto the earth kingdom ship and promptly got surrounded by the spears of earth kingdom soldiers.

"Quick bring up the earth!" A commander yelled as carts of earth were brought up as a fire bender sliced through an arrow and jumped up onto the deck, sending a blade of fire through some soldiers before a chunk of earth impacted onto his chest knocking him back off. Katara was locked in a duel with two different craft, circling around in front of her, jumping over or riding along any waves she sent at them. A stray fire blast aimed for the mast was stopped as a wall of mud rose from a cart as the earth benders joined the fray to protect their ship.

"Aang!" Neji yelled. "We need to take out their ship!" And following his words Neji jumped off the side of the ship as Aang moved back, before sprinting forwards and extending his glider taking off from the side of the ship and flying towards the fire nation ship, using his air bending to deflect incoming shots from the catapults. Neji landed on a fire nation skimmer, repurposing it and charging forwards with a quick empty palm thrust behind him to propel him. Tenten provided covering fire as two skimmers rushed to intercept Neji as kunai knocked them from their craft as Neji jumped over the spinning craft to continue his charge towards the fire nation's ship. A fire bender managed to fight back against the earth kingdom soldiers, making a beach head on the deck before he was forced back onto the defensive by a flurry of kicks unleashed by Rock Lee. The soldier was unable to avoid all, or even most of the blows and with a cry of "Dynamic Entry!" he was sent tumbling off the side of the ship. Suki fought back a few fire benders spinning and stretching over the blasts of fire sent her way as Sokka rushed forward, trying to help her.

"Careful Suki!" He yelled, getting in the way, forcing Suki to grab him and throw him out the way of an attack.

"I'm fine Sokka!" She yelled in return. "Focus on them! I can deal with this!"

Tenten noticing Sokka's distress directed Toph like a piece of human artillery sending fire nation benders flying back unconscious.

Aang landed on the deck of the ship sending a blade of air arcing into one of the catapults knocking out its crew and slicing through the taught ropes holding it as the rope splintered and fell. Neji jumped onto the deck was faced with three guards charging towards him.

"Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms!" He yelled, dancing between flailing swords and fire blasts as he weaved through their defences, their heavy metal armour little match to his clans jutsu, sending them to the floor quickly, easily and efficiently. The other catapult however chose this moment to land a direct hit on the earth kingdoms ship. Smashing into it add causing a few refugees to fall into the water, Toph stumbling blind on the deck was hit by Tahn and was sent tumbling with him into the water. Sokka turned grabbing Suki as she stumbled on the deck even as he cried.

"Toph wait! I'll save you!" He turned to Suki "You need to be more careful!" he yelled as burning wood fell around them as earth benders tried to replace the wood with the remaining earth they still had.

Suki sent Sokka a withering look before diving off the side of the ship, grabbing Toph as she flailed about and swimming with her to the shore, following Tahn

"Neji!" Aang cried. "We need to return to protect the ship!" The fire nation skimmers had started to retreat, seeing their artillery returning fire and they rushed back to protect their ship and catapults from the two supposed air benders. Neji nodded as Aang grabbed him and took off towards the earth kingdoms ship as Neji threw a kunai with an exploding tag into the remaining catapult blowing it to splinters as the fire nation ship turned, having regained its crew, retreating back to the fire nation side of the lake to repair and receive medical attention for its wounded. Aang nimbly dodged the fire blasts sent towards him before reaching the earth kingdom ship, dropping Neji on it before landing.

"Where are the others?" Aang asked.

"Most of the refugees are fine, but Tahn, Ying and Tehne have fallen off the side of the ship!" Tenten reported. "Katara has made sure Ying is safe and is carrying her to the Serpents Path to make sure she has no problems due to her pregnancy. Suki has saved Toph and Sokka dove in after her"

Aang paused, unsure on what to do. Wanting to help his friends, but unable to abandon his duties as the avatar to protect the ship and get to Ba Sing Se and try and find Appa.

"Aang go!" Neji told him. I'll protect the ship and make sure the refugees are safe. "You Lee and Tenten need to go make sure the others are safe, there must be a reason that path is feared!" Aang nodded relieved he could check on his friends and ran off flying quickly over towards his friends to help guide them out of the sea and onto the land, using his earth bending to lower the ground to enable them to swim ashore as the fires still burning on the ships were being put out by the remaining earth benders. Tenten and Lee quickly followed Aang, making sure that they had supplies before jumping over the side of the ship and running over the water to meet up with the sopping wet team on the pass.

"Oh Sokka, you saved me." Toph cried as she finished coughing up water, moving up to plant a kiss on 'Sokka's' cheek.

"Actually it's me" Suki sheepishly said.

"Oh... well... heheh" Toph started, blushing a deep crimson embarrassed. "You can go and let me back in so I can drown now" She sunk back as the other members regrouped on the path gasping for air, watching the wooden barge limp on towards Ba Sing Se.

* * *

The group trudged along the path, shivering from the cold. Whilst the flickering camp fire the night before had helped to dry them off, they were still stuck with no change of clothes due to the fact that the only supplies they still had were the sleeping bags and mats and the few fish hadn't been enough. Sokka and Suki kept sending each other glances with confusion and worry, there time together the night before having not helped. Thankfully the boat had managed to carry the group about three quarters along the path so they needn't worry about the perils of the earlier parts of the track. Unfortunately their fishing the night before had attracted the attention of something residing in the lake and as the trekked along the path, a shadow followed them from the water, ripples appearing no and then at the side of the path.

"Look!" Tahn cried suddenly "That monument! That means we're close to the end of the trail. We did it we're almost at Ba Sing Se."

Unfortunately it was as if that statement caused the universe to remember that it abides sod's law. And fittingly it was at that moment that the true reason of the name of Serpent's Pass decided to show itself.

"What is that!" Sokka cried as Tahn and his family cowered in fear as a sea serpent measuring 100 feet in length reared up out of the water, roaring as its forked tongue flicks out and it glares down at the humans in front of it with its baleful red eyes.

"I think we've found out why it's called Serpent's Pass!" Tenten yelled in shock at seeing such a creature.

"Suki, you know about giant sea monsters. Make it go away!" Sokka cried, his voice cracking slightly in abject terror.

"Just because I live near the Unagi doesn't mean I'm an expert!" came his annoyed reply as he grabbed Momo and lifted him above his head chanting.

"Oh great and powerful sea serpent, please accept this humble and tasty offering. Thank you."

"Sokka!" Katara cries as the sea serpents head descends, flashing down, its jaw gaping until a strong blast of wind smashes into it with the force of a cannonball forcing it to recoil, screeching in pain.

"I'll distract him!" Aang yelled flicking open the wings on his glider, but before he could take off Lee thrust a hand in front of him.

"No, you must escort your friends and the family across" Lee cried.

"He's right!" Tenten said also moving to stand in front of Aang. "Besides, we are miss Bei Fong's guards after all" Tenten grinned as Toph nodded.

"She's right twinkle toes we need your help over here"

Aang looked between his two groups of friends before nodding as the sea serpent slammed its tail into the path, crushing the fragile path as rocks fell into the ocean.

Toph advanced to the head of their column. "Aang, help me raise a bridge!" She commanded drawing up the fallen earth and earth from the rocks nearby into a path to allow the refugees and the others to continue along the trail. Aang moved to help gather materials and hold it up as he and Katara glanced back at Sokka's impressed cry and they saw Lee jump off the ledge in a flying kick towards the serpent.

"Dynamic Entry!" He yelled impacting on the sea serpents head and sending it crashing back before he back flipped off it to land gracefully on the water, chakra covering his soles as he looked up at the serpent. The serpent, now enraged, surged forwards its jaws opening as it descended, trying to eat Lee whole. They were snapped shut however when a withering storm of kunai and shuriken descended towards it, sinking into the flesh of its mouth forcing it back for the second time. Tenten glared defiantly at the serpent as it roared back at her. She sprung forwards trailing two scrolls behind her before they started to coil around her, like her own serpents.

"Summoning, Bladestorm!" She cried as lots of weapons appeared in a smokescreen. When the smoke dissipated Tenten was almost hanging in the air, surrounded by what was at first glance her own sun, but was just a glistening array of steel forged weapons, thin strings of blue stretched from her fingertips to each and every piece of metal surrounding her.

"Ninja Art – Blade Hawk Dance!" She cried, before she started to spin, almost in an imitation of Neji's rotation and as she did the blades around her began to move, slowly at first, but picking up speed until all you could see was a blur of steel due to the angular momentum as she crashed into the sea serpent's body, pushing it back as its head fell forwards, roaring in pain. As Tenten began to slow due to the scales of the creature slowing her attack down even with chakra infused blades it moved to eat her much as it had tried to with Lee, until an orange clad foot smashed into its head from below sending it flying back as Tenten landed gracefully her weapons disappearing as Lee landed next to her just a few moments later. Rocks crashed into the water as the path the others used fell apart, unable to remain stable with the benders powering it gone. Tenten and Lee glanced at each other before sprinting around the beast, one moving clockwise around it, the other anti-clockwise. The beast span round, unable to keep up with them as it wobbled, unstable and dizzy before shinobi launched themselves at the beast.

"Double!" They both cried even as the beast roared in defiance, almost deafening them and knocking them out of the air with sound waves alone. "Dynamic Entry!" Both kicks landed true, smashing into the serpent on either side of its head as it stiffened, creating an image of symmetry, before it was ruined due to Lee's kick having more power behind it. Tenten spun out of the way of the falling serpent as it fell, crashing into the water before they both landed back to back. Lee giving a thumbs up whilst Tenten just smiled. They sensed the serpent move and braced themselves, but with one last look the serpent slunk away into the depths having found its prey this time to be too tough.

* * *

Tenten and Lee ran up the side of the cliff and rejoined the others, seeing Ying holding a baby as Toph disassembled the earth tent.

"Looks like you had as much as stress as we did" Tenten commented off hand as she approached grinning at Katara as Suki took Sokka off to the side and Lee headed over to the family to look at the baby.

"We managed" Katara smiled. "It couldn't have been as stressful as taking on that sea serpent" She continued as they talked about what had happened.

Aang however chose that moment to fly back and land hurriedly on the ground his eyes shaded by the wings on his glider.

"Guys..." he stammered out looking up. "We've got a problem."


	8. Machinations of War

Well that was a quick year!

Wait, what do you mean only a month...

Also the next chapter is likely going to be short since it is likely to be Neji entering the city and his mini story in the walls as part of team Gai's 'Tales of Ba Sing Se'. In theory this should mean it'll come out sooner... in practice however.

I own nothing in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender toMichael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko

* * *

Machinations of War

The groups journey kicked up dust as they neared the thick dirt walls of Ba Sing Se. Reaching up to the heaven's in defiance of any army that dared to think about trying to scale them. One could almost be comforted by their sight, however the reassuring presence was slightly put out, due to the anxiousness of the avatar leading the group. Anything capable of spooking him, was probably not a good thing. Aang and Toph advanced until everyone was near the wall before raising their arms and stamping their feet. The earth shook as the master earthbender and her apprentice rent it asunder and part of the ground started to steadily rise up the wall under Toph and Aang's guidance.

"Now what's so big that Appa has to wait?" Sokka asked as the wall reached the top and the group clambered off it, Lee and Tenten helping Than and his family as Aang pointed into the distance.

"That" He said indicating the wall of steel advancing towards them, the tanks dwarfed by the massive pillar drill in between them, folding metal plates sliding over each other as steam jettisoned from exhaust pipes.

A cry of despair emanated from behind them and they turned to see Ying, her face a mask of hopelessness.

"We made it to Ba Sing Se, and we're still not safe. No one is." She cried

"What are you people doing here? Civilians aren't allowed on the wall." A man cried as he charged up to them, dressed in the armour of the earth kingdom. He paused in front of the group as Aang made his way to him.

"I'm the Avatar. Take me to whoever's in charge. " He spoke, leaving no room for argument as the guard turned, beckoning them to follow him as he lead them along the wall. The tour of the battlements ended when the group got to a part of the wall with tall arches springing out of it, forming an impromptu room atop the wall which functioned as an office for the general tasked with defending it. The guard saluted before moving to the entrance as the avatar's group moved in, the general standing to meet them.

"It is an honor to welcome you to the outer wall young Avatar, but your help is not needed." He spoke smiling before Aang replied, slightly confused.

"Not needed?"

"Not needed." The general emphasised. "I have the situation under control. I assure you the Fire Nation cannot penetrate this wall. Many have tried to break through it, but none have succeeded." He finished smugly, observing the plains the fire nation were using to advance.

"What about the dragon of the west? He got in?" Toph spoke up starling the general.

"Well...uh...technically yes. But he was quickly expunged!" The general paused, gaining confidence. " Nevertheless, that is why the city is named Ba Sing Se. It's the impenetrable city. They don't call it Na Sing Se. That means penetrable city." The general laughed at his own joke as Tenten rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, thanks for the tour, but we still got the drill problem."

"Not for long. To stop it, I've sent an elite platoon of earth benders called the Terra Team." The general said, indicating his troops on the field below.

"That's a good group name, very catchy." Sokka stated, with a thoughtful visage as Lee nodded his agreement behind him.

The group watched as far below the Terra Team clashed with the drill and its guardians as Ty Lee and Mai emerged to engage the team after the first few tanks were casually flipped out of the way or destroyed with earth. The battle was both swift and one sided as Ty Lee used her chi blocking to drop the Terra Team one by one.

"We're doomed!" General Sung cried, flailing his arms in panic.

"What is it with incredibly breach able giant walls?" Tenten questioned the air, thanking the small mercies that at least there were no giant snakes trying to break in here. Toph sent her an odd look as the general continued to panic.

"Calm down!" Sokka cried back, Slapping the general a couple of times as resounding smacks could be heard along the wall.

"You're right, I'm sorry."

"Maybe you'd like the avatar's help now?" Toph questioned smugly.

"Yes please" came the timid reply as he sidled over to the avatar.

"The question is how are we going to defeat that thing?" Aang asked no one in particular, looking down over the battlements. Everyone's face proceeded in domino fashion to state at Sokka, who stood dumbly for a second before pointing to himself.

"Why are you all looking at me?" He asked.

"You're the idea guy" Aang answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

" So I'm the only one who can ever come up with a plan? That's a lot of pressure. " He complained

"You're also the complaining guy" Katara added.

"That part I don't mind" Sokka conceded.

"We're going to help save the Terra team!" Tenten cried as she and Lee looked over the wall. "They might be able to help us and even if they can't it wouldn't be right to leave them to the fire nation." As she spoke Lee jumped over the side as the gang gasped and the general advanced looking worried as Tenten gracefully jumped over as well, sending chakra to her feet she slid down the wall rapidly. The surprised faces of earth kingdom soldiers watching them descend

* * *

Too easy.

That was what summed up the fight against these earth benders Ty Lee decided. Sure they might have been more powerful than the regular mooks they'd been fighting, but compared to the avatar's team. Well nothing could match up, in skill or looks. She glanced at Mai as she rolled over the back of one earth bender before flipping over another, dropping both in quick succession. Mai looked as bored as ever as she launched her weapons at the remain soldiers, helping dispatch the ones who weren't felled by Ty Lee's chi blocking. The dust settle and the two girls looked at each other, before Ty Lee noticed Mai's gaze go up towards the wall. Curious Ty Lee turned to see what her friend was looking at.

"Hey what's that dust cloud coming towards us?" She asked, turning to Mai. "Some sort of new poofy earth kingdom weapon?"

Mai squinted her eyes up, using her experience at picking out targets at range to spot two figures, charging down the walls.

"Brace yourself" She stated in a monotone, causing Ty Lee to look back at the wall. "It looks like two of the avatar's new teammates" Ty Lee grinned, happy to see the new, intriguing members as the clanks of metal notified them of the fire nation soldiers trying to secure the earth kingdom troops behind them.

A brief glimmer of light alerted the two to several metal objects, rapidly travelling towards them as kunai slammed into the ground where they had been standing, but a few seconds earlier. Mai grimaced, sending her own weapons to intercept the spinning shuriken that fell like rain in a follow up attack as the green clad assailant launched himself from the wall, streaking towards them and landing in amongst the fire nation guards, who, caught off guard, were quickly dispatched with a cry of "Leaf Hurricane!"

Ty lee quickly checked behind her, noting the green glad teen was picking up the soldiers with ease, as if they weren't full grown men and was preparing to take them over to the wall where an earth platform was rapidly descending, rocks starting to pelt down from it as reinforcements arrived to try and aid their fallen comrades. She quickly dodged around a few of the falling boulders, to advance on the teen, blushing as his outfit really did not leave much to the imagination. She charged, breaking into flips, but forced away when, mid flip a kunai flew under her, something sparking trailing from it as two more flew by her sides.

"Ninja Art! Tri Explosion!" was the warning before all three kunai exploded and white hot flames burst out trying to engulf her. As she shook the ringing from her ears her vision cleared to see the earth kingdom soldiers retreating, having got their comrades onto the earth platform as the team avatar equivalent of Mai fought a fighting retreat, still dancing with Mai in a clash of blades and throwing weapons.

"Guess that leaves you and me!" She cried, resuming her attack on Lee this time, unhindered by flying explodeables. She cartwheeled forward onto her hands and launched a couple of lightning fast kicks through the air as her opponent dropped into a sweep causing Ty Lee to spring off her hands and fly over his out stretched legs. She quickly tried to lash out from the air, sending several quick strikes and jabs at him, but he deflected a few blows by hitting her arms off target below the wrist before diving forwards and rolling, before springing back into a standing position, spinning to face her, one hand out in front of the other as Ty Lee landed and ponytail flying wildly to face him.

"Lee" the girl yelled, pulling back towards the earth kingdom soldiers trying to raise the earth back up the wall. She ducked sharply before a couple of knives whizzed over her head, catching and severing a few strands of hair before she jumped back catching a few other knives sent her way, spinning round on her feet and flinging them back at Mai causing her to dash out of the way.

"I must beat you to return to my friends!" Lee cried, his legs tensing, "So I must ask you to please move out of my way." Ty Lee prepared herself for an attack. What was it going to be? A kick? A punch or elbow strike? A leg raced towards the right hand side of her head causing her to duck, preparing to drive forward into his chest. It was then that Ty Lee realised that his leg was coming back down to slam into the ground in front of her propelling him into the air and over her landing and carrying on to the raising earth platform. Knives embedding themselves in the underside as it rose back up the wall carrying away the earth kingdom's wounded.

"They got away" Mai noted, not really caring. Ty Lee nodded, Azula hadn't told them to take prisoners, but she still pouted slightly at the thought of the new enigma's leaving.

* * *

The group quickly rushed the downed men to the enclosed infirmary further down the wall. Lee and the other soldiers lying them down on the futons as general Sung, who had introduced himself formally to the avatar moments before, approached them worriedly.

"What's wrong with him? He doesn't look injured." He asked observing one of his men as Katara rushed in water flowing around her as she tried to use her bending to heal them.

"His chi is blocked" Katara replied, dissolving the energy. "Who did this to you?" She asked looking down at the weary man before her.

Said man coughed and spluttered, before regaining his speech. "Two girls ambushed us, one of them hit me with a bunch of quick jabs, and suddenly I couldn't earthbend, and I could barely move...and then she cart wheeled away." Katara's eyes lit up in recognition as Tenten spoke up.

"It was that girl with Azula, Ty Lee." Tenten approached the bed as everyone's attention turned to her. "She uses a style similar to Neji. By striking the chakra points in a person's body you can shut them down, take out their chakra or bending or incapacitate them."

"It takes you down from the inside" Lee spoke up. "Unable to use chakra you run out of energy and stamina and that is even if you could still move after your body parts are disabled. It takes you out one part at a time."

"That's it!" Sokka suddenly cried causing everyone's attention to swing to him. "That's how we take down the drill! We take it down the same way she took out the Terra Team"

"By hitting it's vital parts from the inside!" Toph spoke up excitedly.

"Yea we'll take it down from the inside." Aang spoke, gazing out over the field.

* * *

The group huddled together in one of the abandoned trenches, left by the defeated Terra Team after their failed charge.

"Once I whip up some cover, you're not gonna be able to see, so stay close to me." Toph instructed, gesturing towards the drill before raising her arms in intricate movements and slamming her feet down on the ground causing a thick cloud of dust to kick up.

"RUN!" She cried charging over the top of the trench, the rest of the team following into the billowing cloud. Unfortunately the Fire Nation weren't all idiots and whilst they didn't know what the cloud was for, they weren't complete idiots as fire bullets started pelleting into the cloud from the drill and the tanks readied their own weapons, lowering and manoeuvring them into position.

"Damn!" Tenten cursed "We need a distraction, if they think this attack has failed it will make it easier to breach the drill in the long run."

"Leave it to me, my youthful teammates!" came the cry from Lee as he changed trajectories and sprinted off out of the cloud, dust billowing in his wake as he sprinted out in front of the drill, drawing fire as jets of flame erupted from the closest tank causing Lee to somersault over the jet and throwing a kunai, complete with explosive tag at the turret. A fire nation engineer jumped out the top of the tank as his fellows soon fled from the hatch, before the tank came to a grinding halt as it's turret blow up, billowing smoke.

The rest of the group continued their charge, Lee's distraction taking all the fire as the fire nation thought off the supposed threat, ignoring the chance that there might be more people. As they neared the drill Toph spun, bending a hole in the earth.

"Everyone in the hole!" She cried and followed it up with jumping in herself and sealing it when everyone was in.

"It's so dark down here, I can't see!" Sokka complained causing a snarky response from Toph.

"Oh no! The horror!"

"Sorry"

The group stilled, waiting for the inevitable rumbling as the drill started making its way over their hiding position causing Toph to open up the hole, allowing the other members to look up at the underside of the drill. The area is cast in shadows from the mighty tracks rising on either side of the group as the pull themselves up, scanning for a weakness in the underside of the drill.

"There!" Sokka cried pointing at a pipe hanging off the underside of the drill and Aang quickly leapt up to it with his air bending, Tenten joining him not a moment later with a chakra empowered jump. Aang swung his legs over the pipe, looking on, amazed by Tenten, who merely shrugged, as if standing upside down in a massive 'up yours' to physics was a normal occurance. They extended their hands as Katara and Sokka jumped up and they grabbed them, using the momentum to swing them up and into the drill, Tenten following, flipping round to land gracefully in the belly of the drill. They looked around to see Aang still reaching down for Toph. As Sokka yelled out.

"Toph come on!"

"No way am I going in that metal monster. I can't bend in there. I'll try to slow it down out here." She replied looking resigned and turning around.

"Okay good luck!" Sokka replied as Aang joined them inside the drill.

The group trudged along the inside of the drill, the ringing of metal emanating from the grill beneath them as red lights cast the rooms in a harsh light.

"I need a plan of this machine. Some schematics that show what the inside looks like. Then we can find its weak points." Sokka commented looking at some of the pipes running along the inside of the wall."

"Where are we going to get something like that?" Aang questioned as Tenten ran her hand over some of the pipes, before nodding at Sokka who swung his machete down and through the metal. The pipes snapped about disgorging the steam inside into the corridor.

"Why did you do that?! Someone will find us?" Aang asked, panicked.

"That's the idea" Tenten replied as Aang looked at her confused.

"A machine this big will have engineers on board to keep it in working order" Sokka explained. "So when one comes we knock him out and take the schematics"

The gang smiled as Tenten fiddled with something and true to form, after a few moments an engineer came charging through the steam to try and fix the pipe. Only for a wire to snap sending a rather large chunk of metal into his head, stunning him as it clanged into him. As he span and dropped to the floor dazed Sokka reached down and pried the drawings from his hand.

"This will do nicely" He said, thanking the engineer as he regained consciousness just in time for the steam to solidify into ice, trapping him on the ground. The group raced on, further into the depths of the drill before coming to a rest, lots of metal beams surrounding them as they looked around in awe. Sokka unfurled the schematics, deliberating over them before announcing.

"It looks like the Drill is made up of two main structures. There's the inner mechanism, where we are now, and the outer shell. The inner part and the outer part are connected by these braces. If we cut through them, the entire thing will collapse." He announced, running his fingers over the parchment to better illustrate his points. The team nodded as Sokka directed them further into the drill.

The group raced on to a massive steam beam as Sokka paused to look down at the schematics.

"These are much bigger in reality. We're going to have to work really hard to cut through them!" Sokka commented.

"What's all this we stuff?" Katara question angrily. "It's me and Aang who are going to have to cut through this."

"Hey I'm the ideas guy, you're the cutting things up with water bending guys" Sokka retorted. Waving his arms around like a lunatic on cactus juice. "Together we're Team Avatar!" Aang and Katara shared a look as Tenten spoke up.

"I don't think I'll be much help here" She stated. "I'm going to see if I can break through any beams by myself since I can't water bend." She paused "and if I can't then I'll keep watch to make sure you don't get interrupted by any fire nation forces." Sokka nodded as Tenten jumped up into the raftas, looking around before leaping from beam to beam before landing. Glancing around as she quickly pulled out explosive tags, setting them and jumping back and up to safety. She raised her fingers in a seal and focussed her chakra detonating the explosives and kicking up a cloud of dust. As it settled though it quickly came apparent that the beam still held. Tenten hopped down to examine it, noting that whilst it had survived, it hadn't come out unscathed, the effects of being close to such high temperatures apparent as she inspected the new heat affected zones on the beam, discolouring the metal as it strained. She glanced up as the Aang and Katara returned to sending a blade of water through the beam they were standing on. Getting an idea Tenten jumped into the air, spinning around as blades started appearing around her.

"Ninja Art! Blade Hawk Dance!" She cried spinning around into a circular saw and descending on the weakened metal. It offered resistance for a moment but it was quickly overcome as the metal buckled and gave, the blades sinking in and through the beam as Tenten used her chakra to maintain her angular momentum. Eventually stopping as, with a groan the beam broke in two, splitting apart as Tenten landed and stumbled, exhausted and dizzy from the technique. A second snap was heard soon after and she turned to smile at Sokka, Aang and Katara.

"I'm don't know how many more of those I have in me" Katara panted out before an ominous shudder travelled down the drill, team avatar, reaching out their arms to steady themselves.

"We did it!" Sokka cheered. "We better get out of here fast!"

They started moving towards the door, Tenten unsure that only destroying two beams would have such an effect. Her fears were proven true as a moment later a chilling message rang out through the drill.

"Congratulations crew, the Dill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se."

The shuddering increased in intensity as the earth debris was met with water which carried it away from the drill bit, turning it to slurry which travelled along pipes, which filled the crevices of the drill. Sokka grimaced.

"C'mon brace, budge!" He moaned, struggling futilely against the metal beam, seemingly taunting him. Tenten, Katara and Aang collapsed on a beam behind him.

"This is not good." Katara said, stating the obvious.

"We're putting all our effort into braking these braces, it's taking too long!"

"There must be another way." Tenten spoke up, raising her hand to her chin as she pondered. "If we can't take it down can we stop it? Or at least buy more time whilst we weaken it?" She asked looking around.

"That's it!" Aang yelled, air bending to his feet. "Maybe we don't need to cut all the way through. Toph has been teaching me that you shouldn't give 100% of your energy into any one strike. Sokka, take a fighting stance. You've gotta be quick and accurate." Aang said as Sokka adopted his position and Aang promptly hooked his leg around Sokka's and unbalanced him with a blow to his ankle, followed up by several blows to his upper body. "Hit a series of points, and break your opponent's stance." Aang followed this up with a swift, but light blow to the head. "And when he's reeling you deliver the final blow!" He exclaimed, knocking Sokka onto his arse. "His own weight becomes his downfall. Literally."

"So we just need to weaken all the braces, instead of cutting all the way through!" Katara exclaimed happily.

"Then I'll go to the top of this thing and deliver the final blow!"

"And boom, it all comes crashing down!" Sokka finished happily, getting up and raising his arms, before sweeping them back to better illustrate his point.

"I'll go sabotage the engines or joints!" Tenten joined in. "Without them it won't be able to move and even if it can, it should slow it down long enough for us to disable it before it breaches the wall!" The group nodded at each other.

"Everyone inside that wall, the whole world, is counting on us" Aang said, passion lighting a fire in his eyes.

"The whole world, minus the Fire Nation that is." Sokka corrected as the rest of the group rolled their eyes.

* * *

Tenten ran down corridor after corridor planting traps and slicing through the thin pipes helping to keep the drill moving. She turned and slid across the floor, scurrying into an indent in the wall to hide as she heard footsteps and Azula and Ty Lee ran down the corridor towards team avatar. The third member of Azula's trio soon made herself known by flinging knives at Tenten causing her to spring up and kick off the wall to flip over Mai.

"It seems we were being sabotaged, Azula was right to make me hang back to investigate the reason we were slowing down." Tenten shrugged, guessing that when the drill slowed down too much they'd be found, but she had been counting in it not happening so soon since she hadn't even taken out one of the tracks yet. Raising her hand and releasing the tags an ear splitting explosion tore through the side of the drill, making Mai stumble as Tenten used chakra to remain standing. A beam fell between the girls as Mai glared up and Tenten turned to flee back to the avatar's group. A knife whizzed past her head, embedding itself into a pipe as more knives followed, some deflected by falling debris and some hitting metal plates and flying off in random directions, causing peril to both girls. Tenten jumped turning to throw a couple of shuriken in return, cutting through the air as Mai dodged to the side and returned with her own. Tenten sent more to knock back the flying ninja tools as she continued to weave through the collapsing corridor. Aang ran out in front of her, turning to blast Ty Lee away as she swung down from a beam. She recovered and sprang towards Aang again as Tenten jumped, a ninja wire spinning around a beam as she swung round to kick Ty Lee away, sending her sprawling onto a nearby chunk of metal as Tenten landed and turned to face her. Aang sent a blast of air down the corridor to fend of Mai as she pulled back into cover. Azula jumped up from below, sending a wave of fire crashing down to where Aang was standing as he spiralled out of the way and Katara and Sokka appeared at an intersection.

"This way!" They yelled as Aang and Tenten took off after them with Azula and friends giving chase. Blasts of fire and throwing weapons clashed with return blasts of water and air as the group raced down the corridor, reaching a t junction.

"Guys get out of here, I know what I need to do." Aang cried running off one way with Momo hitching a ride on his shoulder.

"Wait! You need this water more than I do!" Katara cried dislodging her water pouch and throwing it to Aang who deftly grabbed it, continuing his run.

"Follow them, the Avatar is mine." Azula ordered as she ran off after the avatar and Ty Lee and Mai pursued Tenten, Katara and Sokka… right into a certain slurry pipe.

* * *

Aang slammed the boulder down hard onto the metal X carved in the top of the drill. As the stone impacted into the metal, splitting it and tearing strips of it up. Azula looked on it horror as the drill shuddered and started to grind to a halt. Her visage quickly changed to a smirk as Aang's changed to horror as the plates surrounding the drill started to drop off and a new more streamlined drill sped up, ploughing into the wall. Both people atop the drill were distracted however, when an excitable green blur raced up the wall.

* * *

Lee flipped over another jet of fire landing lightly before launching himself backwards as the two sponsons swivelled to aim at him, disgorging their attacks as well. Lee was forced on the retreat as more of the tanks in the column advanced towards him, sweeping round to flank him opening fire to add to the raging firestorm threatening to consume him. The crew from the disabled tank rushed to engage him on foot, trying to avenge their fallen tank. One charged at him from the front, bending the blast from one tank around him as cover before shooting it forward with an attack of his own boosting it, forcing Lee to leap to the side, sending a kunai towards him. A fire blast knocked it out of the air as his comrades rushed at Lee as he landed, barely getting a moments respite before he was ducking and weaving, blasts of fire flung from kicks and jabs. Up, down, left, right, Lee weaved back pedalling away some blasts getting close enough to singe the ends of his air.

He could not stay like this. Lee did a mental checklist of his remaining tools. Unlike Tenten he no longer had much left in his pouches, he was out of tags and his stash of kunai was down to but a few. He knew he'd have to get more in Ba Sing Se, or get Tenten to forge or give him some more. But for the moment he'd have to play with the hand he'd been dealt.

A tank chose this point to rev its engines and charge towards him, sending the engineers on foot scattering out the way, one jumping to the side to avoid it as one blasted up with fire bending sending one last fire jab crashing down at Lee as the tank raced under him. For a moment it looked like Lee was about to be run over by the charging tank, but at the last moment Lee leapt to the side and rammed one of his legs into the side of it. The fire nation soldiers looked on in shock as instead of his leg snapping it dove into the tank cutting a deep gourge into its side as his weights increased the force of his kick, whilst he used chakra to reinforce it to prevent major injury. He was forced to snap his head back as the tank sent one final blast of fire out of the turret on its side before it died away as Lee's leg passed through it, severing it and causing the tank to spin before grinding to a halt smoking. Lee landed and stumbled, his leg not thanking him as a couple of soldiers rushed him again. He was hit square in the chest by an blast of fire before one swung his arms down, sending a blade of fire crashing down into him. Lee was blasted back, sent sprawling by the attacks, however when the first soldier approached to check on him he flipped onto his hands, swinging around and extending his legs to deliver a powerful blow to the side of his head before flipping back onto his feet.

The two remaining engineers on foot backed away slightly as the tanks turned around for another go, lining up alongside Lee and going for a broadside of fire. Lee in return back flipped onto the nearest one as fire gushed out towards him. He quickly smashed one chakra empowered fist through the top and dragged the crew out, throwing them away as the tank stopped with no one left to pilot it. Lee reached down to his leg warmers causing the soldiers to flinch before Lee pulled out a set of numb chucks and whipping them around his body.

The combatants paused however when a screeching sound came from the drill as earth rose up out of the ground, pillars slamming into the main body of the drill, just behind the bit whilst smaller columns rose into the gaps and chinks in the armour, trying to pin it, slowing it's advance. The tanks turned to face the greater threat and the remaining tanks on the other side could be seen swinging to meet the new earth bending menace. Lee picked up Toph in the middle conducting the earth's resistance and knew that if all the tanks attacked her she'd be in trouble. Even as he watched the first one reached her aiming at her. Before it could fire however the earth under one of its tracks rose up flipping it over and disabling it as another tank swerved to avoid it and crashed into an earth column, immobilizing itself. The engineers scrambled to safety before the drills massive tracks crushed it.

The soldier also seeing this began to advance on Lee, wanting to take him out so he couldn't help. The first fire blast was dispelled as the handle of one of the numb chucks flew through it, extinguishing and the fire nation soldier who had fired it engulfed one of his hands in flames, closing in the wake of his blast and sending a straight punch towards Lee. Lee in return used a crescent kick to bat away the fist at the wrist, sending the solider trailing after it. He passed by the side of Lee who knocked him out with a swift blow to the back of his head. Lee charged another soldier trading blows as punches flew at each other, two close for fire bending or kicks. The combatants split however as a boulder hurtled into the space they had previously occupied. They looked up at the wall to see the earth kingdom defenders retaliating at the attacks. The earth bombarding down managing to crack a tank here and there, sending others scattering as Toph continued to fight against the drill. It was a fight she was destined to lose however as the drill kept up its relentless advance as Lee ran towards it, ducking as a blast of fire soared over his head and leaping as he neared Toph and she turned, sending a wave of earth into the fire bender knocking him into the air. She slammed her foot down sending another airborne as Lee leapt up after him, kicking him back to the ground. The penultimate soldiers were dispatched by punches, the force behind them causing them to fly slightly to smash into them as Lee finished the last one by throwing his numb chucks at them and catching them as they bounced off.

"We make a good team!" Toph grinned as Lee sunk chakra empower fists into the drill and tried to help her slow it down as the tank couldn't reach under the chassis of the drill and had to resort to trying to snipe them with long ranged fire blasts whilst dodging the rain of earth descending on them. The earth bent back around Toph and Lee's feet as they were pushed back when suddenly the drill shuddered. They looked up hopefully, before noticing that the drill had reached the wall and was starting the slow process of breaching it.

* * *

Boulders smashed into the ground nearby as Toph grimaced, the earth kingdom soldiers weren't doing anything to the drill and were only making it harder to concentrate when a massive amount of earth slammed down, but a few feet away from you. At least the tanks were kept at bay and she was thankful for that small mercy.

"C'mon twinkle toes!" She hissed as the drill kept pushing them back when suddenly a chain of explosions rang out down one side of the drill as the metal buckled and the tracks spun wildly for a moment, before it managed to right itself and move forward again, albeit at a slower pace. The tank continued to grind into the wall despite their best efforts, when they were suddenly surprised when a hatch burst open and slurry poured out, quickly followed by Sokka, Katara and Tenten. Ty Lee tried to follow, but was swiftly held in place when Katara bent the water back up into the drill.

"Toph come and help me!" She cried as she and Toph bent the water and earth back up into the drill with Sokka encouraging, or annoying, them. Tenten stumbled slightly as she made her way over to Lee.

"Aang's gone up top to deliver the final blow" She said as Lee nodded before their heads snapped around, seeing the remaining tanks trying to advance on the group now that they were outside the cover of the drill. Tenten and Lee rushed to engage them, gracefully spinning sideways over the top of a long blast of flame, sending paper bombs and exploding tags back at them in Tenten's case, or disappearing between them with numb chucks in Lee's. Boulders continued their steady rain down from above, smashing into the dry earth and kicking p clouds of dust as the shinobi danced between them and the tanks, never getting hit as the glided away from the incoming strikes. Suddenly a resounding clang echoed along the edge of the drill as it shuddered to a stop. They heard a cheer go up from the wall and Sokka soon joined in. The slurry burst out of the drill as Toph elevated team avatar up and away from it as Lee and Tenten leapt onto the remains of a nearby tank. The victory was cut short however as the metal plates began to move. Shifting slightly before starting to shed as the drill started to move again, increasing in speed as the more streamlined drill let out a few blasts of steam from the back and holes lining it.

"It's almost gone!" Sokka realised, shouting. "Another strike should disable the weakened engines! Good job Tenten!"

"C'mon Twinkle Toes!" Toph cried out. "Finish it off!" Lee had already run off, chakra flowing to his feet as he made contact with it, sprinting up the wall emerging past the top of the drill as metal and earth rained down around him. He saw Aang and Azula's shocked expressions and jumped off the wall, launching himself into a graceful flip, arcing over the drill as Azula sent a scorching blast of blue flames at him, impacting where he had been standing only moments before. He noted the giant X carved into the top of the drill as he turned seeing the boulder descending directly towards him.

* * *

Azula smirked as she saw the boulder hurtling towards the airborne green clad menace. He was annoying, but at least he was soon going to be taken care of. She began striding towards the avatar and was just about to start gloating her victory when they both heard a cry from above.

"First Gate – Gate Of Opening! Open!" Came the cry and Azula glanced up, taking a double take and staggering back slightly. The power radiating off him was almost tangible as he thrust forward one arm, the bandage on it unravelling to surround and ensnare the boulder. He pulled it in towards him before it was fully mummified and he started to spin round in the air, becoming a blur. Then he angled down towards the X and Azula could only watch on horrified at what happened. It was almost in slow motion as he impacted on the rock, already wedged in the X, smashing it to pieces as the boulder he was holding drilled its way down.

"Primary Lotus!" She heard before a massive sound wave assaulted her ears, temporarily deafening her as metal buckled and broke, tearing apart as the drill fell apart, slurry and steam escaping from their confines as pipes burst and sent their contents spurting out, covering the wall and ground and anyone unlucky enough to nearby. The drill fell apart, metal sliding over metal as girders broke free and pierced into the sky. Azula was blasted by slurry and knocked down to the ground were Ty Lee was lying now free from the drill as team avatar went to congratulate each other the remaining tanks pulling back to cover their retreat from any overzealous attacks from the earth kingdom or fatigued members of team avatar.

"We lost" Mai muttered, sticking her head out of one of the few remaining parts of the drill still intact.

Team avatar on the other hand walked back into the city victorious" as Sokka tried to come up with a team name.

"The Aang Gang?" He asked expectantly.

"Sokka…"

"The supreme seven?" Sokka replied, earning a light tap round the back of the head from his sister

"The youthful warriors?" Lee asked hopefully. Before Tenten shut the idea down before it could spread.

"What about the GAang?" Asked Toph as the they made their way past the wall to the station, to enter into the city proper.


	9. Tales of Ba Sing Se - Neji

Well turns out I was a liar. Regardless I'm game to try this reincarnation again. As a warning I will just say that there are OCs in this chapter, perhaps they were used slightly too heavily, but none of them will appear again after this chapter. There is one fight scene which is purely OCs so if you want to skip it it's the third one.

and

as always,

I own very little in this story. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and Avatar the Last Airbender toMichael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The plot of this chapter could be considered lost and the OCs were randomly generated on the fly... and with that out of the way, lets get this reincarnation going!

* * *

**Tales of Ba Sing Se – Neji**

The wood creaked under foot as the boat limped into the harbour of Ba Sing Se, the spray of the water loud and the smell of salt strong as the tattered sails fluttered in the wind as it docked, almost crashing into the wood as it did so. Earth kingdom refugee's swarmed from the Fire Nation damaged ship, the scorch marks still evident on the wood and in the burn marks on the sails as teams of Earth Kingdom shipwrights hurried onto the boat to survey the damage. Neji strolled onto the docks almost annoyed. The sudden attack at sea had not been appreciated and being separated from the rest of his team in this, largely unknown, world was less than ideal. He glanced around, noting the other boats readying themselves to return to the hidden port with more guards rushing on as engineers and shipwrights consulted drawings and schematics to repair the wounded craft and make sure they were sea worthy. He shook his head at a merchant, trying to sell a variety of fruit whilst another lamented the sea air and its effects on his cabbages. Quite why a merchant would try to make a business out of purely selling cabbages was beyond Neji as he continued up the cobble stoned stairs towards the large building with tracks exiting out of it. The sun deciding to be particularly unforgiving as it bore down, shining bright light on the travellers as they hurried to their destinations and supposed safety under the clear blue sky.

The low hanging sign identified it as a monorail and a brief moment was given to appreciate how organised the refugee effort was as Neji was quickly, yet calmly, herded onto a nearby train before the earth benders started it's steady progress up into Ba Sing Se. Glancing round the carriage showed a distinct change in the appearance of the people sharing the journey. Up until this point in the Earth Kingdom Neji had noted that everyone looked downtrodden and fearful, yet here they seemed to be starting to relax, the stress and fear disappearing as the monorail continued its journey. This was something Neji could find relatable, the imposing walls of Konoha did indeed inspire courage and relief in shinobi returning from long and difficult missions, then again Neji mused. They weren't unbreachable.

The blurring of the scenery slowed as the earth benders brought the tram to a halt, lining up at the station before sections of the carriage reopened to allow people to exit. Neji quickly strode out of the tram, stretching out and cracking his bones after being in transit for so long. Observing the hurried movements of people as they were yet again herded towards immigration booths as guards prepared the new citizens for life in Ba Sing Se, trying to sort out housing and food for the refugees. Neji wandered through the crowd, waving away the officials who gladly left him to it. Knowing that the avatar's appearance in the city would spread like wildfire and that would make the rest of the group easy to find. The avatar would also be likely to be gifted with a place to stay without the need to queue for the measly handouts available which was another bonus.

Wandering through the packed docks and outer city the sights and smells that could be found soon began to change. The cries of despair and of pleading changed from desperate refugees to people haggling and bartering at street merchants, the smell of the sea faded to be replaced with the smell of vegetables and cooked meat. Tall walls of stone encircled what was likely one of the poorer suburbs of Ba Sing Se. Not one of the passer-by's looked well fed and some looked downright sickly as they hurried about their business, shooting the occasional glance at Neji, sometimes curious, sometimes resentful. The guards allowed him past with narrowed glares and coin surreptitiously slipped into pockets, the small shiny objects enough to detract the questioning nature of the guards at someone obviously better off than the area he was in. The glitter of money attracted some attention from the dark alleyways and the shadows, the walls and monorail system providing ample cover as you could see richer folk staring down at the life they ignored, all seemingly guided by the same person Neji noticed, even with strict training people couldn't look and act that similar. Groups of wiry youths eyed him as he strode down the streets, none dared to confront him though, the pack on his back, whilst tempting was not worth attacking a man so confident… causing even the most daring groups to back down and slink away from the authoritative eyes.

'Not the utopia it was made out to be' Neji thought as he continued down the street, taking in the sights of the people scurrying around him. Up ahead he could see the street opening out into a courtyard, a fountain in the middle with water flowing around the chipped basin, the once fine stonework chipped and marred by time and human interference, with no one able to clean and fix it, the populace here to poor and the richer members of the city and other things to occupy their time and money. Guards kept watch over the stream of refugees at one end of the courtyard as a few others were dotted around the few market stalls, checking for thieves and making sure that people stayed safe. Meandering over to a stall, manned by a teenager of similar age and curly brown hair, Neji took in the sight of the fruit on offer, looking slightly fresher then the competitors around it he picked up a couple of apples, fumbling around for his money before the teen shook his head, dropping the requisite coins into the collection tray. Neji nodded his thanks before disappearing back in the river of people streaming about.

* * *

Lee looked at the long haired man as he strode off. His long hair held back in a ponytail swishing behind him as he took a bite out of the apple in his hand. He looked at the tray, wondering if it was the right choice, then again if he was a refugee he would need all the help he could get in Ba Sing Se at the moment. Lee looked up again, trying to find him, to advise him of where to avoid., but even with his distinctive hair and clothes he was long gone.

"Well, he looked tough… he must be if he made it here by himself so he should be alright?" He questioned no one in particular. Before checking around, looking to see if any of the Lower Se gang members were around. Unfortunately luck was not on Lee's side as Xang slinked into view round a corner of an alleyway. His old, pale brown breeches were tucked into worn leather boots with a green tunic and tabard hanging off his lean frame. A couple of leather belts crossed round his waist, a sword hanging innocently off a sword ring to his left hand side.

"Lee, how's our favourite little vendor?" He greeted, raising a hand. "Seen anyone worth going after?" he asked, grabbing an apple from the basket in front of the store and taking a large bite out of it. His mousy brown hair shifted as he regarded Lee with his amber eyes. "Well? I'm waiting?"

"No one of any worth Xang" came the reply from Lee, trying to come across as disinterested.

"That won't do Lee" Xang replied grinning. "I know that gal that was just here must be loaded, she didn't look like the refugee type." He paused, taking another bite out of his apple. "Well that and with her clothes and hair she must be worth a lot" Another pause, another bite of the apple. "'Specially if she's the daughter of an aristo. So if you could stop flirting and get them to show how much money they had on them, that would be great."

"First of all that was a guy" Lee started, wiping a bit of Xang's spit out of his face. "and secondly I'm not helping you mug the refugees anymore."

"Guy" Xang lifted one hand up, "gal" he lifted the other, before casually discarding the apple over his shoulder. "Makes no difference to me, so long as there's gold involved." He paused looking into the crowd again, his eyes tracing over the passing mob. The people milling about, creating eddies in the turbulent flow of people. "Looks like there's another boat load, we are popular today" he muttered before selecting his target. He set off, the squeak of his leather boots audible even with the milling crowd.

"You will go after him Lee... that is unless you want to find out about the rumours of the Dai Lee being true..." He trailed off, turning and grinning back at Lee. "It would be such a shame of Lei lost her brother to the Earth Bender security force, just in time to drag her off for talking about the war!" He casually waved before being swept up in the crowd mere moments after. Leaving Lee both fuming and despairing at the situation.

"Damn it" he cursed before dismantling the stall, the target already found. "I'll find a way out of this somehow" Lee muttered as he tried to psych himself up to attack the most recent customer.

* * *

As the daylight started to leave the sky Lee crouched low on the dark tiled roof of one of the lower ring houses. His target was in the pub across the street, apparently asking for any news on the avatar and his group who had apparently been stranded in the Serpent's Pass implying that he was a comrade of the avatar himself .

"A shame, maybe the avatar could have helped us out" Lee muttered under his breath. "No if he had been around we would never have been forced from our homes to begin with and made to flee here." He cursed. Well he did not make the world, and whilst he may not like it the only way to keep him and his sister safe was to stay with the Lower Se's and if that meant having to mug the poor refugees then... no don't think about it that way he told himself. Think of keeping Lei safe.

His musings were brought crashing down as he saw the distinctive form of his customer from earlier leave the pub, the pupiless eyes making him a keen target. People gave him a wide berth as he strode out, yet he never seems to get anywhere near them regardless making Lee wonder if he was able to see or if he was blind, he certainly had a confidence in the way he walked and acted which implied he had sight, but the eyes seemed to indicate otherwise.

Lee shook his head, no it didn't matter... all the mattered was taking some of his excess money and proving that he could work for the Lower Se gang, he wouldn't need to over exert himself to hurt him. Lee shuddered thinking about how cruel some of the other members could be, at least he could let the people he was forced after get off lightly.

Lee watched as the young man ran a hand through his hair before setting off from the pub, it was in one of the rougher districts, even for the lower ring so he was no doubt searching for a place to spend the night with a lesser crime rate, even if it was slight. Using earth bending to make bridges between the houses Lee followed, at least he thought, stealthily. The street soon cleared as the man made his way through the city, turning onto a more deserted side street. Lee took this as his chance, using the earth gathered under his feet to propel himself forward, crashing down in front of him as dirt was kicked up from the track obscuring him. In the defence of the man Lee noted that he didn't seem surprised, or if he was he hid it well. The torches set into the walls near doors for the pubs and houses and shops that lined the street flicked slightly, sending the shadows dancing around the street.

"So you were the one who was following me?" The man asked. More of a statement then a question.

"Yes, sorry, don't take it personally, I just have to do what I have to do" Lee replied, looking into his stoic face, slightly unnerved by his opponents demeanour.

"Yes, of course... I suppose the fresher looking produce at your stall was designed to attract the wealthier of the refugees?" Another question, Lee was aware that he might be stalling for time, waiting for the guards. Thankfully the guards patrols in the lower city were few and far between, but it was still something to be careful of.

"You catch on quick, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take your money now." Lee paused, looking at the man opposite. "Please don't resist, I don't want to hurt you more than I have to." He finished.

The man dropped back slightly, one foot shifting behind the other, a slight bend in both knees, clearly not about to hand over his coin so easily.

"A change from earlier it seems then" he muttered.

"I did warn you." Lee sighed before kicking off from the ground, using his bending to again raise the earth under his feet, adding to his momentum as he flew towards his opponent.

What Lee was not expecting was for him to react so quickly, moving his back foot around to spin out of the way, a hand grabbing him as he did so, sending Lee spiralling forward as he used his momentum to spin around and fling him into a wall. Lee crashed painfully through the side of the thankfully unoccupied house. Pausing for a second so the stars no longer appeared around his head he went back on the attack, this time more cautiously, stamping down and punching, sending some of the nearby debris flying out of the house towards the gap in the wall. He could see the rustle of the loose clothing his opponent favoured as he jumped out of the way, leaving the earth to impact on the wall opposite, dust flying up everywhere. Lee jumped up, smashing his way onto the first floor before charging towards the window, jumping out to try and catch his opponent in the confusion of the dust, striking down at the shadow he saw, aiming to pin him to the floor and incapacitate him. He wasn't expecting his attack to cleave harmlessly through some spare cloth before a blow rained down on his back sending him earthwards. As he hit the ground with a loud cry, he quickly flipped himself over on his hands, the torches flickering as his opponent crashed down soon after, trying to pin him down in a similar tactic.

"This would be much easier if you just gave up!" Lee cried, hoping he would so he didn't have to use too much earth bending overpowering him and attracting the attention of the few guards who kept watch in the lower city.

"True, but I must meet up with my friends and the avatar, even if most people here think that is laughable." Came the reply through the dust.

"Of course the avatar can't help us now, he should have been here earlier to counter the fire nation!" Lee cried out.

"Interesting" a pause. "The way you say that seems more personal than just someone sick of the way and forced to move.

"It doesn't matter" the reply, shortly followed by a stamp, cracking and causing the ground to fracture, the man jumping to avoid the rumbling of the dirt street under him. The jump disturbing the dust and darkness allowing a few shards of rock to be flung towards him, causing him to spin in mid air, deflecting and dodging the projectiles, some of the houses nearby took hits, a few scared screams rising from some, and shouts of anger from a local tavern that had taken a hit.

"Eight Trigrams! Vacuum Palm!" came the cry as the wind projectile flung past Lee, scattering the dust cloud to restore vision to the street come battle field, the rock and dirt projectiles scattered and were knocked out of the sky as their momentum was robbed. The torches flickered again, the shadows dancing and creeping as the night started to set in. His opponent landed lightly on his feet whilst Lee was recovering from his attack.

"An air based attack? So you are the avatar?" Lee asked, grimacing. Pain and annoyance and anger crossing his face

"No, but I'm only his companion." came the reply. "I'm Neji, and what has he done to upset you so?"

"If he hadn't have left, I would never been forced to flee and join this gang!" came the reply, the red mist blinding Lee so that he gave away his secret. "and if you're with the avatar then you can help pay me and Lei so we can live in this pitiful excuse of a city." With that Lee jumped up, bending platforms out of the nearby buildings to launch himself up before jumping above Neji, gathering the surrounding earth around him before crashing down in his earth armour. Neji sprung back quickly avoiding the attach before flinging a kunai in response, the glittering tag igniting the night as it exploded, sending the earth flying everywhere. Lee let out a yell as his armour was forcefully stripped from him, raining down on the street behind him. The two combatants faced off for a few moments before the rushing of armour clad feet could be heard, Lee turned his head and cursed as he knew that the guards could no longer ignore their fight and had chosen to intervene. He whipped his head back round in time to see Neji leap off a couple of walls to vault onto a building and run off. Cursing again Lee quickly shrunk off into the shadows, using earth bending to hide himself from the incoming patrol.

* * *

"You what?" Zheng asked, looking deceptively calm all things considered. The fact that his voice was that level was in of itself an achievement for the leader of what was widely regarded as one of the most hot headed new gangs springing up in the aftermath of the refugee effort. This of course didn't mean much Lee mused, all things considered, it was most likely a bad sign that the leader appeared that calm.

Zheng was the leader of the Lower Se's, so named after the area of the city they were forced into. He was much calmer and more methodical which had allowed him to gain control of the more hot headed members and with their spirit had taken out anyone who opposed him. The fact that he knew how to use the two swords hanging loosely from the thick leather belt crossing over his upper dark green robe and helped as well. The blades were long and slightly curved, a curved hand guard, wrapping around to protect the knuckles finished off the blade before reaching the hilt, wrapped around with leather. They were deviously sharp as well, easily able to cut through flesh and bone should he wish. His dark green robe ended at his waist, with a strip hanging down in his centre on both sides of his body, with pale brown legging ending in calf high dark leather boots. His sleeves where white, hinting at a comfortable undershirt, surprising luxury for someone in such an area of the city as the one he lived in. His black hair was combed back for the most part, tied back with a piece of leather cord into a ponytail with only a few strands hanging over his face.

"I'm sorry the guards started to arrive and he got away" Lee replied slightly fearful of the leader. The sniggering of his companions didn't help either. 'Perhaps I should have tried to join with him'. Lee thought. 'Maybe I could've gotten him to help me.'

"That's hardly an excuse... you are our captive earth bender are you not?" The gentle tone of the question belied the feeling behind it, a chill spreading through Lee's spine at the reminder of his failure.

"No matter you did get some money from the stall... so I can reduce your sentence to only a few days training" The tone was like Zheng was conversing with a friend, though the laughter from Xang was loud and obnoxious.

"Hope you enjoy your 'training'" He laughed, making air quotes with his fingers. "Hopefully you should learn that our organisation doesn't tolerate failure this time round."

Lee hung his head, at least Lei would be safe for now, but he'd have to get through the training and hope he still had his morals... though he needed a way out of the gang and quick.

* * *

Lei walked through the crowds, pushing through to get to the market. She was slightly worried for her brother. Being forced to earth bend against some of the better members of their gang was going to help him out when they finally left the Lower Se's... if the left. But at the same time it would be tiring for him. At least she could see him at night, so she was determined to help out as much as she could. She recalled him mentioning the source of his loss, the strange man who was apparently a companion of the avatar. She doubted it at this point, with the hopelessness of her situation, but if she could convince him to help her and her brother... Well if he was with the avatar it must be worth a chance right? But she'd have to find him first, and with such a large number of refugees streaming in he would be almost impossible to find and that's if he had stayed in this section of the city.

She shook her head, her brown ponytail swinging. There was no point dwelling on possibilities. Lee would be tired due to his training so she would just have to make sure he had food when he finished. She hurried through the market, the small amount of gold held in a leather bag clutched tightly in her hands. She carefully manoeuvred her way through the crowds surrounding the few stores and stalls she trusted not to rip her off to buy a few loaves of bread and some vegetables and fruits. Including a cabbage from a strange man with a cart full of them. As she was contemplating what a weird business choice that was she accidentally walked into a someone and was knocked down. Lei grumbled for a bit before picking up some of her scattered food.

"Hey, watch where you're goi..." she trailed off as she looked at the person she had walked into, he seemed to be the same age as her and her brother, his long brown hair pulled back and his white and gray clothes seemed very clean considering the area. What was most striking however was the pupiless eyes that gazed down at her, though it almost looked like there was a spark of recognition in them.

"I'm sorry are you alright?" he asked pulling her up and handing her the rest of her stuff. Lei nodded her thanks, wondering if this was the man Lee had been telling her about, it seemed unlikely, but so did the idea of there being multiple people with pupiless eyes in the same place.

"Wait!" Lei cried as she looked around to see that he'd disappeared, the crowd still flowing around her, the only viable sound the cries of the man trying to sell his cabbages to passer bys.

"Wait? Why would we wait when such a wonderful target has appeared here?" A loud voice came from behind her. She turned looking at the figure. He was tall, taller than her brother at around maybe 175cm with tan hair, messily falling out of his green bandanna. His dark green tunic didn't hide the muscles of his well toned body and his dark green trousers reached down to his black boots. A halberd was slung carelessly over one shoulder making the crowd give him a wide berth. His two lackeys to his side sniggered at her shocked expression, their swords held loosely in their grip, one a katana, one a slightly less curved mercenary sword with a wavy hand guard.

"One of the lower Se's and if I'm not mistaken it's the little earth benders twin sister... this would be useful to make him work for us wouldn't it lads!" He cried, shifting the halberd on his back.

"Get away from me I'll never work for you" Lei replied, slipping her stuff into a canvas bag slung around her and reaching back to draw out a few knives.

"So it seems the cat has claws" He replied. "Still even with a few throwing knives you won't scare us away like the other thugs around here." He smiles as Lei threw a knife at him only to be batted away by a swing from his halberd. His grin grew as he approached, swinging the pole arm around himself as he knocked more of the knives away from him, sending the crowd scurrying as the guards looked disinterested at what appeared to be a gang fight, the small bag of coins handed to the captain by one of his lackeys ensured their inaction.

Lei flinched as he closed in, closing her eyes and turning away from him, raising her arms in a futile gesture as he readied his halberd to swing down. The attack never hit her and she cracked open her eyes and the sound of his gasp. At first she wasn't sure what was happening but in a sudden moment clarity descended as she saw a palm striking him in the stomache, the man, no teen from earlier grimacing before shifting his weight and sending the halberd armed teen flying back to crash heavily into a nearby cart.

"MY CABBAGES!" was heard with despair lining the voice from the background as the teen straightened up, dusting some imaginary dust from his clothes.

"Are you ok?" he asked looking at the other two lackeys who were grimacing and readying their swords.

"Yes, are you Neji?" Lei replied cautiously.

"Yes, you remind me of someone who attacked me yesterday, but he didn't seem to have the same mindset behind his attacks as other members of his gang."

"Yes, he was only in the gang to protect me" Lei cast her gaze to the side. "We had to flee here when our parents will killed in a Fire Nation raid, we were forced into working for the gang so we would have a place to stay and have protection from the other gangs and thugs."

"I see, it would make sense that he would resent the avatar for not being able to help him then." Neji seemed to nod to himself. "Well you two know me, so you hold me at the disadvantage..." he trailed off.

"Sorry, I'm Lei and my twin brother is Lee" Lei replied shaking Neji's hand.

"As fun as this all is" came the annoyed cry from the remains of the cabbage cart. "But I was in the process of acquiring her services in getting me a captive earth bender so if you don't mind getting out of the way" The opposing leader stood up, striding out of the ruined wood, trying to maintain as much dignity as he could. "Getting those two will help me reach the top of this lower city, and maybe even help me escape it, so I won't let you interfere" He said spinning the halberd around a few times, limbering up to face off. "I can tell you're tough, but they say they can judge a man based on the enemies he's defeated, so when I, Tang defeat you I will finally get the respect I deserve!" He lowered the halberd and sent a lightning quick stab at Neji and Lei causing them to jump apart, his lackeys charging in towards Lei as he quickly followed up with a couple of thrusts at Neji, before going for a leg sweep driving Neji back slightly. Lei threw a knife at the lackey with the katana diverting him off in time for her to draw her dagger and deflect the sword aimed at her arm, a blow designed to incapacitate more than kill.

Lei desperately parried a couple more swings, using the momentum to spin around off the blows, her dagger unable to hold with the sword for more than a few moments. She lashed out with a kick to the back of his knees but was forced back when the katana wielder swung at her. He forced her back to a wall before pinning her against it and going for a thrust to her shoulder. A kunai knocked the katana off course and made it plunge into the stone behind Lei as Neji jumped past a halberd swing, running a hand along the wooden shaft as he swung over it before landing next to Tang and delivering a couple of quick palm strikes to his chest making him stumble back and cough. Lei kicked the man away from her as Neji turned to deflect the mercenary sword now rushing towards him. He jumped up from a low swing and kicked off his chest to flip over Tang before being forced back from a few frenzied swings of the weapon still clutched desperately in his hands. Neji rocked back a few steps, alternating from foot to foot as he took in his opponents. Lei was still duelling with her opponent on the other side of the street, the katana making her unable to get in range to disable him.

"What did you do to me?" Tang wheezed out, short of breath. "I shouldn't be this out of breath already"

"I closed a couple of chakra points around your lungs, not enough to damage you too much, but enough to restrict your breathing." Came the calm reply.

Lei looked over from her fight. She had sustained a cut on her forehead, which was starting to bleed and get in the way of her left eye. The canvas bas lay on the ground from where a slice had taken it from her. She gasped looking at the thug facing her, the katana held loosely in his grip as he surveyed her, panting lightly as well. He quickly raised it and went for a strike towards her chest causing her to jump back, reaching back for a knife in the leather pouch behind her only to draw up a blank. Lei jumped back again before readying her dagger, with a quick flick of the wrist she sent it soaring towards the thugs left temple, the katana moving up to meet it, deflecting it as he raised the hilt above his head with the blade pointing down. This move was to be his undoing however as Lei used the dagger as a distraction to charge forward, spinning around and launching a side kick into his stomach. The katana grazed her leg as her kick sunk in, pushing the thug back and winding him, causing his arms to drop as he gasped and moved to grab his stomach. Lei wasted no time, quickly pulling her leg back and jumping to her other one to deliver a roundhouse kick to his head, knocking him to the ground and out. She looked up in time to see Neji flip over Tang and deliver a few quick strikes to the thug before spinning around to attack Tang again, the blows slipping past his slow guard before spinning past a clumsy counter attack. She could barely keep up with his hands as he finished the thug to his rear with a few more quick palm strikes, before he turned, ponytail flying up and delivered a final palm strike to Tang, breaking through the halberds shaft as he did so.

There was a stunned silence surrounding the group, no one wanting to talk or make a sound as soon as the bodies hit the ground unconscious. There was a few seconds of stillness before the crowd erupted in a panic, fleeing away from the scene. The guards, unto this point not interfering started moving in causing Lei to run, leaving most the throwing knives were they lay, having no time to collect them.

"This way!" She shouted to Neji, praying that he was following her, wanting to talk to him, to ask for help, before she turned tail and fled down a nearby alleyway, sliding under the too close grasp of a guard. Lei ran, her green tunic and leggings not providing an easy are to grasp for the guards chasing after her. Their metal armour may have offered more protection, but in the confines of the alleyway she was at an advantage, jumping over fences and boxes, easily gaining distance from them. After a while she stopped, round the back of an old tea house if she remembered the area correctly. The dirt alley was packed with boxes and crates, which provided ample cover and seating after fleeing through the labyrinth of the back streets. The cries of frustration in the distance alerted her to the guards, futilely looking for her or Neji, before they grew distant as they gave up and left back to their guard house, having to report the fight.

"Neji?" She called out unsure, looking around for him, letting out a tired sigh and running a hand over her face when she couldn't see him. Cursing lightly as she leant back on the box, her head lightly touching the cool stone wall behind her as she closed her eyes. The sun that made it through the winding collection of buildings and ropes warming her face.

She was startled when a light thump could be heard from the shadows and her eyes snapped open to gaze upon his form, his clothes still somehow as pristine as always.

"There seems to be an interesting story here." He said, leaning against a wall. "Someone who seems kind, but then attacks me, though his will is not behind his blows..." Neji trailed off, looking at her.

Lei sighed.

"It all started when we were forced out of our home in front of Fire Nation troops. Our parents were killed but we managed to make it to the ferry..." She paused, looking at him for a moment before turning away.

"It got worse from there, we made it here but we were robbed, we had no money so Lee borrowed some." She clenched her arm. "He borrowed it from a group called the Lower Se's and when we couldn't pay them back they said he'd have to either join or sell me to them." She looked up, noting that Neji had tensed slightly at the last comment, though he was doing a good job at hiding it.

"He joined, but when they were trying to toughen him up they realised he was an earth bender, they've been using him to escape and navigate around the lower city to avoid the guards and attack their rivals easily, using me as black mail to make sure he behaves."

The silence stretched out between the two for what seemed like a long time, sitting uncomfortably in the air before Neji broke it.

"I see, that's why he attacked me and why he seemed so annoyed at the Avatar." he paused thinking. "I dislike people who force people into servitude, fate should not work that way." Lei looked up surprised. "I will do my best to make sure people who can avoid that fate will... and besides I like the Avatar and since I'm part of his group I should try and help people shouldn't I" He gave her a reassuring smile.

"Here's what we're going to do" he said, before beckoning Lei over and forming a plan.

* * *

Lee crashed back, crying out as Xang withdrew his leg. He hit his head painfully against the rock of the cavern behind him. The rattle of metal chains attached to his wrists could be heard as Lee tried to stand up again, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth,

"C'mon Lee, you gotta be tougher to survive in this part of Ba Sing Se" Xang smirked to the guffaw's of the other members surrounding him. "If you wanna protect your sister you're going to have to do better than that."

Lee let out a growl of frustration, sending out a kick followed by another, clumps of earth and rock flying out towards his tormentors. Xang ducked under one before batting the other away with his sword.

"You can earth bend better than that can't you?" He asked, waving the metal blade around. "No? Perhaps we made a mistake in bringing you into our group then, perhaps we should just sell you or your sister off hmm? To pay back the money you owe us."

Lee growled again glaring at Xang before turning to regard Zheng as he strode forward from the back of the cave.

"Play nice Xang, he is still our valued comrade, as is his sister" Zheng smiled before turning to look at Xang. "Regardless I have some other business to attend to so I'll see you later." Zheng finished and walked towards the stairs leading out of the caverns. The lanterns glittering on either side, casting an eerie glow into the room that the few crystals couldn't dispel. The ceiling was high with notches cut out from excavation attempts with debris crowing the floor. Zheng ascended up the stone steps, into the light of the house upstairs and an overall more pleasant environment.

Xang took that moment to charge back in, causing Lee to jump up and out of the way of a fast horizontal swing. Xang leaned down, jumping up onto one hand before propelling himself off to deliver a drop kick towards Lee making him jump back again. The long chain hindering his movements. He stamped down, catching a few badly shot arrows in a wall of earth as one of Xang's goons decided to join in, the fletches flying off as they impacted in their sudden target. They were distracted by a sudden sound going off from the house upstairs, a flash of light and a crumping sound echoing down into the cave.

"Looks like someone's blown up the kitchen again" a goon spoke up before the general attention was returned to Lee. Xang swung his sword around a few times, getting ready before charging in, Lee ducking and spinning past the attacks, the heavy metal around his wrists slowing him down before he managed to catch Xang's sword in the metal links. A few more bangs could be heard from up the staircase as Lee and Xang exchanged attacks, sword met chain, kicks met blocks and the archer let off a few more shots, arrows sticking into the ground or bouncing off forming columns of rock until soft footsteps coming down the staircase distracted them. They all turned to regard the person casting a shadow into the cave.

"Lee, we're leaving the gang" came the statement as Lei walked into the room. Xang and the other members turned to glare at her.

"Well at least one of you has gained confidence, shame it's in the wrong area" Xang commented as a thug charged Lei with his sword drawn. Lee kicked up a chunk of rock before roundhouse kicking it towards him, hitting him squarely in the back of the head and sending him sprawling to land at Lei's feet. Lei in return reached back and drew something from her bag, throwing it at the crowd behind Xang, the paper containers splitting on impact and letting off small explosions. A gas seemed to emit from the containers as the thugs that were nearby soon collapsed, leaving only Xang standing, facing off against the twins.

"Clever girl" Xang muttered, removing the sleeve from his face as he observed the sleeping forms of his men. "though I wouldn't get your hopes up about leaving the gang!" He cried, charging in again, swinging his sword wildly at Lei forcing her back. This shocked Lee out of his stupor and he pursued after him. Xang swung down with his sword forcing Lei to the side, her dagger deflecting off the blade and making her move to disengage. Lee leapt at Xang's back, trying to wrap the chain round him, but Xang noticed and thrust a kick backwards to land squarely in Lee's stomach, forcing him away.

"Lee!" Lei cried out drawing his attention, seeing her slide a key along the floor, Xang reached down for it before he saw his sister thrust her dagger at him, forcing him to block.

'Oh no you don't' Lee thought as he saw Xang move to kick away the key, sliding a foot forwards to earthbend away his footing and send the key speeding towards him before being catapulted up into the air. He hastily grabbed it and unlocked one of the manacles, before hearing a cry and looking up to see Lei fall back and Xang raising his sword. Quickly he slammed a piece of rock towards him before swinging an arm, the unlocked manacle flying towards him, the earth throwing him off balance before the metal hit into Xang's hand, causing him to cry out in pain. He staggered back, clutching his sword hand in the other as he glared across at the siblings.

"You are going to pay for that one Lee" he growled rushing forwards again, sword behind him before he leapt forward swinging it sideways. Lee ducked under the swing before using a pillar of earth to throw him back again.

"Are you ok Lei?" he asked his sister, worried.

"Yes and don't worry, I found Neji, he's helping us get free from this gang"

"Really, he's still here and helping us!" Lee replied.

"Yea, you made quite the impression on him brother" Lei smiled before the approaching form of Xang distracted them.

"I'm not going to let you leave" he growled brandishing his sword and pulling a dagger out of his belt as well.

"We'll talk later" Lei shouted as she ran at Xang, cart wheeling before launching herself over him, landing and spinning round to deliver a round kick towards his head. Xang ducked under and moved to strike with his sword, but had to stop and guard when Lee sent a blast of earth at him, forcing him to cut it in half. He jumped away from Lei, vaulting over a wall of earth to thrust at Lee, turning with the blade so that it barely glanced across his chest, ripping the fabric slightly. In return Lee wrapped around the chains of the manacles, trapping the blade. Xang jumped up, kicking off Lee's chest as Lei tried to strike him from behind, soaring over her before landing and punching her in the back sending her stumbling forward into Lee. He tried a follow up strike with his dagger in his off hand but was met with a rising column of earth that knocked it out of his grasp. A manacle flew round the earth, trying to hit him, but Xang simply grabbed it and yanked on it, pulling Lee into the mud wall he had just erected. He cried out in pain as Xang hastily went to reclaim his weapons. Lei took the time to free her brother.

"Thanks" he grunted out, flexing his wrist before swinging his hips forward to fling a punch out, earth from the wall behind him breaking off and flying towards Xang who merely cut it out of the sky as he charged. He slashed down towards Lee making him jump back before side kicking Lei in the stomach, sending her flying back. Lee looked towards his sister, seeing her did her feet in as she flew backwards grimacing. He soon had to divert all his attention to Xang though as he charged again, his sword a blur as he lashed out with it, much faster than Lee had thought he could. Whilst the swings were wild, they also had a large amount of force behind them so Lee moved back, barely avoiding anything more serious then ripped clothing. He felt the cavern wall hit his back and he stiffened before ducking under a blow that would have taken his head, before replying with a shoulder barge to Xang's stomach, sending a shot of rock out of the wall at his head, hitting him back further and stunning him. He looked up to see Lei try and press the advantage, jumping at him with a round kick only for Xang to duck. Lei landed in front of him and spun on her heel, moving round with another spinning kick to his neck before having to pull back from the dagger moving towards were her leg would have gone. Lee rushed forwards, earth shooting up from the ground and flying towards Xang, his called warning alerting his sister who jumped to the side and out the way, leaving Xang to dodge and weave through the projectiles, stopping his rush with a sword travelling up towards his chin.

Lei took this moment to swing her dagger down, disarming Xang again as he blade knocked his from his grip. Lee decided this was his opportunity and rushed forwards with a well placed knee to Xang's abdomen causing him to gasp and drop his dagger. The fight soon ended when Lei managed to knock him in the small of his neck, dropping him to the ground and finishing the fight.

The two siblings collapsed and spent some time on the floor, gasping and just looking happily at each other.

"It's finally over." Lee muttered, looking gleefully at his sister.

"Can you be so sure?" A deep voice from the stairs asked, a figure approaching them.

* * *

Night filled the sky, the moon in full dominance high above the town, casting it's eerie glow down, combining with the fluttering torches to make the shadows dance around the streets and alleyways.

"This is the place?" Neji asked, turning to look at Lei standing slightly behind him.

"Yea this is it, but there's usually a couple of guys acting as a lookout"

Neji nodded his acknowledgement before activating his Byakugan. Two senbon were flung. Two sentries dropped from their posts hidden on the building opposite, not dead, just knocked. Neji turned to Lei.

"Take these bombs, I'll distract the guards up top, but if there's anyone in the cavern where your brother will be use them to knock them out" He watched as Lei nodded, taking the bombs carefully. Neji turned back to the tall town house. It's stone walls had seen better days, but the verandas had worked for the sentries now lying limp on them. Neji strode up to the wooden door, beckoning Lei over before he firmly rapped his knuckles on the door three times.

"What do you want?" came the gruff reply as the door opened a crack, the light from inside igniting a small sliver of the dark alleyway they stood in. Neji smiled at him.

"I want to see your boss please, I need to talk to him about a couple of people in his employ."

"Well too bad, he ain't got nothing to say to you"

Neji looked taken aback for a moment.

"So much for the easy way" he muttered before striking forwards, hitting the thug in his abdomen, flooring him instantly. Gasps could be heard from inside as Neji slipped a few more paper spheres inside.

"Get back!" he warned Lei before pushing her back as the door and part of the wall behind him erupted in a flash of orange light and fire, sending the wall and splinters of the door flying out.

"Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation!" came his reply, spinning around to deflect any debris heading their way before slowing to a stop and looking into the new entryway to the building.

He could see a couple of men still standing, one was sitting down behind a table, looking slightly annoyed at the man who had just blown up his hideout.

"I am Zheng I believe you wanted to speak to me?" he asked getting up, pushing a couple of Thugs off him. "You certainly have my attention, did you wish to join us?"

"No, I want you to uncage this girl and her brother."

"I regret to inform you that freeing them is no longer possible." a hand strayed idly to play with the hilts of his swords. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave now, though you can leave her"

"I'm afraid I can't do that." Neji replied stepping into the building, Lei following cautiously behind him.

"I had a feeling you might say that" Zheng replied, indicating to the other still standing member of the room, indicating him to shoot. The man nocked an arrow and loosed it towards Neji who grabbed Lei and jumped out of the way, landing on a table that collapsed underfoot, letting out a loud bang. He jumped forwards again as another arrow hit a nearby table, upsetting it and causing it to collapse as well. Neji threw a nearby remnant of table at the archer, hitting him on the head and taking him out of the fight before letting Lei down.

"Run, help your brother" he commanded, staring down Zheng. He heard Lei run out from behind him, rushing to the stairs before Zheng moved to intercept her, swiftly pulling out one of his swords and sending a precise swing at her in one fluid motion. Neji leapt in the way, kunai clashing with steel blade as he blocked the strike.

He heard Lei gasp and turned slightly before seeing her rush off down the stairs. Zheng choose this moment to push off against Neji, disengaging slightly and drawing his other sword with practised ease.

"Such a shame that I'm going to have to kill you now" He muttered facing off against the Jonin. The room was still for but a moment before both combatants tensed and twisted their feet leaping at each other, kunai clashing with steel as they traded lightning quick blows, kunai turning aside sword, sword catching fabric and fingers brushing past exposed flesh as they both searched for a way to end the fight. A quick thrust sent Neji back before he jumped up onto a wall to the left of Zheng, pushing off it to land behind him and spin trying to deliver a back of hand strike to his head. Zheng rolled forward dodging the strike before rising and turning readying his blades.

"You're good" Zheng muttered, the slight clink of his blades echoing in the ruined room.

"As are you" Neji replied before running to the right, Zheng mirroring him to the left. The wooden stairs creaked as Neji ran up them before jumping over them, flinging three shuriken towards Zheng who deftly blocked them. As the closed Zheng tried to use his blades guard to his Neji in the face, causing him to flinch back as the metal passed close by his nose. A palm strike landed to Zheng's shoulder as a pommel smashed into Neji's stomach causing both combatants to stumble back and reassess each other. Rubble fell from the ruined ceiling, crumbling down onto the stone floor as the remaining wood beams creaked and the stone buckled slightly from losing a wall. The torches stood half extinguished from the fight at this point, cloaking the remains of the room in shadow. The fight paused as the listened to the sounds of fighting emanating from downstairs.

"Looks like this gang as well as hideout is finished" Zheng commented, almost conversationally

"Can't say I'll mourn" Neji replied keeping reading, letting go of his abdomen.

"True" commented Zheng before rushing forward again, his left hand sword leading the way in a thrust aimed at Neji's chest. Neji spun to the side, before the Byakugan flared as he rushed chakra to his fingers, delivering a few strikes to the blade, ducking under the follow up sweep from the right hand sword to end up behind Zheng. There was a clatter of metal as the blade fell, rattling away uselessly on the stone floor before Zheng turned, the curved hilt ramming into the back of Neji's skull, sending him stumbling forwards with starts coming into being around his head. Neji recovered enough to avoid the leg sweep sent his way, jumping round with a crescent kick to know the remaining sword out of Zheng's hand, wasting no time as he rushed in, delivering a few quick blows to Zheng's chest before finally delivering the final blow and sending the former gang leader sprawling to the ground.

After checking on his fallen opponent Neji went to the stairs, the sounds of fighting stopped and a wave of silence emanated up from it. He carefully strode down the stairs before he heard voices.

"It's finally over." he heard a mutter claim.

"Can you be so sure?" He replied. smiling as he walked into the room and seeing the siblings, tired, but only a little worse for wear.

"It's alright I defeated Zheng and the guards will soon be coming to investigate this commotion. He won't be able to come after you, especially if you come with me to a higher ring.

"Would you really do that for us?" The tired and hopeful reply.

"Yes, now let's leave quickly, before we get tied up in the guards work here" Neji commanded, before leading the three out of the ruins.

* * *

The sun kissed city seemed even brighter the next day as Neji left the two at an orphanage in the middle ring of Ba Sing Se, the two luckily being young enough to conceivably be taken care of at such a place. The guards at the gate from the lower city had questioned him at first, but when under fire from the full sense of the Hyuga nobility had quailed and let him pass with them in tow. He looked up and smiled as he saw a monorail car move towards the upper city. A distinctive flying lemur circling it.

"Well looks like they made it after all" he smiled before hurrying towards the gate. Quickly getting past as the guards recognised him from the rumours spreading from the lower city about a strangely dressed teen who had cleared out one of the larger gangs. He managed to make good time into the upper city, to see his friends disappear into a large noble house.

Neji quickly strode up to the door and rapped his knuckles against the wooden door, waiting for a brief moment before the door opened onto a beaming Sokka.

"Neji you made it!" He cried as Tenten and Rock Lee rose to greet their friend.

"Yes, and you must tell me how you got such a fine house." Neji replied, moving into the building.

"It's a long story" Tenten sighed, letting Neji sit down before telling the tale. She had barely started however when they heard another knock at the door.


End file.
